


An Adult's Capacity for Happiness Could Fit into a Matchbox Without Taking Out the Matches First

by JeanBiscuit



Category: Gintama
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Reader-Insert, Reader-Interactive, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2018-06-07 08:07:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 58,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6796048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeanBiscuit/pseuds/JeanBiscuit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some things that are best left forgotten, but you've always been stubborn.  It's been years since the war, and years since he walked out of your life.  The least you can do is walk right back into his, right?</p><p>A story about old war buddies meeting again after years apart, criminal heists, and the meaning behind the letters carved on a wooden sword.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The One Thing Adults Want to Do the Least is Talk About Their Feelings

**Author's Note:**

> happy self-insert week!!! i emerge from my long months of inactivity to bring you a week of updates and a new fic!!!! so i have a few chapters of this written out because i've been sitting on it for months, trying to decide whether or not to publish it, but anyways!!!! i will be updating content of some sort every day this week, including hello, my old heart and in the rain!!! exciting!!!! i've put a lot of love into this fic so i hope you guys enjoy it!!!
> 
> (alright so this is set before whatever the fuck is going on in the manga that i am currently not even close to catching up with, so treat this as a regular introductory character arc. i will probably make reference to other arcs, but probably not anything takasugi related besides benizakura.)
> 
> also: the title is a modified quote from the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy!

Edo really was terrible.  If it weren’t for the garbage, the smell, the casinos, restaurants, dives, love hotels, the questionable middle-aged men loitering on street corners, and other things that would make an upstanding woman like yourself uneasy, it would have been a nice city.  But then, you supposed, there really wouldn’t be anything left to call a city.  

Even so, you had seen worse.  

You threaded your way through the crowded street, around ox-carts and troupes of people huddled together in worn kimonos.  You lugged your sandals through the muddy roadway, the piece of paper clutched in your hand fluttering dangerously in the stale breeze.

“That goddamn Tatsuma,” you grumbled, wrenching your shoe out of a particularly grabby mud patch – shit patch?  Actually, you didn’t want to know.  “Sending me all the way out here . . . ‘go see Kin-chan!’ he says, ‘he’s great!’ he says . . . ‘he’ll solve all your problems!’ . . . what an asshole . . . making me drag my ass all the way out here . . . in this  _ shit  _ –”

At that exact moment, your sandal was brutally wrenched off of your foot with a horrible sucking sound, and you swore so loudly that half the street turned to look.  You then, of course, had to engage in a fierce tug of war with Mother Earth, your fingernails carving grooves into your poor shoes as crowds of people walked by you, murmuring behind their hands and tittering.

“Idiots . . .,” you growled as you wrenched harder at your fast-disappearing sandal, “not helping a beautiful woman such as myself . . . a wasted opportunity if I’ve ever seen one. . . .”  You continued pulling, squatted unladylike in practically the middle of a crowded city street, and you hated to admit it but the ground was winning.  Gritting your teeth, you gave one final heave, and the sandal popped out like a loose tooth, almost sending you flying backwards into a bigger pile of mud, but at the last minute your scrabbling hand latched onto something large and white, and you looked up into a pair of wide staring eyes and a half-open yellow beak.

“Ah.  Hello there.”  The giant bird thing only stared back, and as your gaze traveled down its form, and underneath the white sheet, were those legs – ?

“What’s wrong, Elizabeth?” a voice called out from above you, a voice so familiar that it punched you in the gut like bad curry.  “Why did you stop?”

You looked up to see long black hair, narrow, suspicious brown eyes with a look that could curdle a nice cream pudding, and a wide smile broke out over your face.

“Zura!”

“It’s Katsura,” he responded before you could get another word out, his scowl twisting even further, and air whooshed out from between your teeth as you laughed.

“Long time no see!” you chirped as you used the bird thing to haul yourself up, sticking your elbow into the side of its head for balance as you forced your sandal back onto your foot.

“You’re hurting Elizabeth,” Zura said flatly, and you turned to the bird thing skeptically.

“How can you even tell, its face doesn’t change.”

Zura’s eyes narrowed further, to the point where you thought they might disappear entirely.  “I can tell.”

You rolled your eyes, straightening up and dusting off your kimono.  “What, no warm words of welcome for an old war buddy?  I’m hurt, Zura, really.”

“It’s Katsura.  And I’ve had enough of old war buddies for the rest of my life.”

You made a face, crossing your arms and shifting your stance to one side.  “What’s that supposed to mean?  It’s been – how many now?  One, two, three . . . four?  No, five? Anyways – it’s been years and all you can muster is a frown?  You always were grumpy but I thought maybe veteran life would soften you.”

“I am not truly a veteran,” he intoned, his voice neither rising nor falling in pitch, “the war will forever go on in my heart, and in the minds of any true citizen of Edo –”

“Right, right,” you cut him off, waving a hand dismissively and thrusting your slip of paper in his face.  “Do you know where this Kin-chan guy lives?  Tatsuma won’t stop talking about him, and I was just mildly curious –”

“You’ve talked to Tatsuma?” Zura asked, raising an eyebrow, and you huffed.

“Yes, Zura –”

“It’s Katsura.”

“– I got around.  Not all of us disappeared after the war, you know.”

“And I don’t know any Kin-chans,” Katsura went on, “but you can try the snack shop a few blocks over, the owner knows everyone.  See you, then.”

“Zura, wait!” you protested, grabbing his sleeve as he tried to turn away.  “That’s it?  No promise for drinks later, no reminiscing on our glory days as samurai?  Nothing?”

“It’s Katsura,” he repeated, snatching his sleeve from your grasp.  “And you would do well not to say those kinds of things so loudly.”  He stepped closer to you, eyes scanning the street.  “Things have changed since the war, and I don’t know where you’ve been, but samurai don’t hold any power here anymore.  No one’s even allowed to carry swords.”

“Believe me, I know,” you said in a low voice, gesturing at your sword-free sash.  “I’ve been walking around weaponless for months.  Do you know how hard it is to hide knives in a kimono?”

“Long story short, there’s things that need to be done, and I have to go do them,” he said swiftly, stepping away and beckoning to Elizabeth.  “Another time.  Maybe.” 

And with that, he was gone, and even with that giant white bird thing bobbing along beside him you soon lost sight of him. 

“So much for the veteran support group,” you sighed, ruffling your kimono one last time before continuing down the road, squinting at your slip of paper and scanning the buildings around you.

With another sigh, you set off in the direction Zura had gestured in, making sure to stay well away from the mud pits, crossing your arms tightly in front of you and nibbling slowly on the inside of your cheek.

As you ventured further into the Kabuki District, you had to start nimbly dodging the multitude of bodies that came hurtling your way, most of them so drunk that you started to wonder just what sort of shit the Amanto had brought over, and where you could get some.  In almost every shop you passed there were half-naked women entertaining half-drunk men, and you could have gone the rest of your life without seeing some of the things you saw that morning.

Eventually, after almost being bowled over seven times by gangs of drunken men, and narrowly avoiding getting swept up in a barfight, you were standing in front of a snack shop, staring up dubiously at the two signs stacked on top of one another, the bottom for Snack Otose, the top for Yorozuya Gin-chan.  Your eyebrows raised skeptically.  You had never heard of a yorozuya and frankly didn’t want to know, you had seen enough weird fetish material today to fill ten poorly-written romance novels.

Shaking your head, you strode into the snack shop, clutching your slip of paper like a lifeline, and were greeted by a middle-aged woman with her hair tugged into traditional Edo fashion, along with a middle-aged catgirl – catwoman? – cat female – with dark bobbed hair and a taxidermy sort of look in her eyes.  

“Welcome to Snack Otose,” the human woman croaked, taking a long drag off of the cigarette dangling between her fingers and blowing a cloud of smoke off to the side.  “How can I help you on this fine day?”  She sounded like she would rather gargle glass than help you, but regardless you slid the slip of paper across the bar.

“Would you happen to know anyone named Kin?  He’s a – friend of a friend, I guess.” 

The woman raised an eyebrow, squinting at it for several agonizingly long seconds, but she eventually tsked, and flipped the slip of paper back to you.

“No idea.  You can ask the idiots upstairs, though.  They’ll do anything for money.”  At that moment, a loud thud echoed from the floor above, and the woman rolled her eyes.  “Those damn idiots.  Punch them for me, would you?  And while you’re at it, get those three months worth of rent they owe me, even if you have to kill them.  Just try not to get blood on the tatami mats, it’s bad for resale value.”

You only nodded slowly to that, backing out of the shop and wishing that damn catwoman would stop staring at you as if she wanted to bat you around like a pigeon feather and then swallow you whole.  

Shuddering, you made your way up the outside stairs, adjusting your kimono as you did so, and hoping beyond hope that you could find this Kin asshole and then this day could finally be over.  The banging and tumbling noises only seemed to increase as you climbed the stairs, and you sent a silent prayer to whoever was listening that you didn’t walk in on anything . . .  _ weird.  _

You slowly paced your way across the wooden landing to the rice-paper doors, leaning forward slightly as three muffled voices became apparent.  You couldn’t tell what they were saying (you had had no idea how soundproof rice paper was, you should invest) but whatever it was, it sounded cacophonous, and you weren’t sure how much more your sore head could take.  

You rang the doorbell.  The raucous sounds continued without missing a beat, and you ground your jaw, jamming the button again.  Still nothing; in fact, the noise only seemed to get louder.  Rubbing your temple with one hand, you forced open the door, stepping into a mini-foyer leading to another set of rice-paper doors, and now the voices within were just barely intelligible.

“I’ve told you  _ again  _ and  _ again  _ –,” a deep masculine voice was yelling, followed by a loud crash and a deep booming bark that shouldn’t have belonged to any dog in existence, “that women are too  _ expensive!   _ You seriously think I can afford to be wooing a woman in dire straits such as these?  When I have to feed three free-loaders and deal with the regular destruction of my home on the side?  It’s just not logical!  Where would I get these wooing funds?  Hm?  Do you have a secret wooing-budget stashed away somewhere that I didn’t know about, Shinpachi-kun, because if so didn’t you ever  _ think  _ to consider that Gin-san’s sugar levels were of greater concern –”

You stifled a laugh, curling your fingers into the wooden groove of the door, and preparing a “sorry to intrude” on the tip of your tongue.

You wrenched the door open, and the words died in your throat.

Because there he was, just as he had been at the end, silver hair all a tangle, red eyes wide and blazing and alive, lean muscular form contorting exactly as you remembered as he wrestled with an oversized white beast of a dog, but that didn’t even matter, you barely even noticed the mutant dog currently trying to play whack-a-mole with his ribs, because Gin was alive.

“Gin!” you gasped, which shouldn’t have been intelligible above the sound of he and the dog tumbling around, but he heard you all the same, looking at you upside down from where the mutant-dog was perched on his chest, and the years all fell away and the two of you were standing on the scorched battlefield, bleeding and broken but wonderfully, wonderfully alive, Gin’s hair tied with a white ribbon and his sword all streaked with blood, and you could feel the long-removed shrapnel pricking at your side again, could almost feel the years-old scars breaking open on your back, and your throat itched at the memory of the smoke-choked air.

He hadn’t changed much, really, you noticed as he scrambled out from under the dog; he had gotten a haircut (finally – you had threatened to quite literally mop the floor with him), and the samurai outfit was long gone, replaced by a black v-neck and pants trimmed in red, half-covered by a half-worn white yukata with blue and white swirly designs on the edges, fastened with a grey obi and some sort of tacky leather belt.  And there was still a sword at his waist – of course you shouldn’t have thought otherwise, Gin never took much stock in rules – but it was made of wood, now, and engraved with the name of some lake he had told you about once, and oh wow he really had not changed.

“Oh.  Hey,” he said.  He scratched at the back of his neck, the sound of his yukata rustling the only sound in the room, and you couldn’t decide whether to hug him or punch him or just murder him as the woman downstairs had suggested.  “Long time no see.”

You leaned against the doorframe, and could no longer contain the wide smile that broke out across your face.  “I see your fashion sense is as terrible as ever.”

“Hey,” he snapped, crossing his arms, “I’ll have you know that this is  _ chic  _ right now, everyone’s wearing it.”

“Really?” you retorted, and you were genuinely shocked at the ease with which you were able to talk to the man who had abruptly torn himself from your life with absolutely no word of warning or goodbye.  “I’m sure if anyone else had been wearing something so revealing I would have noticed.”

“My chest has feelings too, you know.  It needs to breathe,  _ breathe  _ I say!  No chest deserves to be locked up in a garment all day.”

“If only you were a woman, Gin,” you sighed.  “Then maybe you’d understand.”

“I know plenty about women,” he snorted.  

“Oh, really?”

“Really!”

“Care to share some of this information?”

“Of course not!  You’re female, you already know all of it!”

“I wanna know, I wanna know!” piped up a high-pitched voice, and you looked to see a red-headed little girl with big, round blue eyes come into view from behind Gin, and your eyebrows shot up into your hairline.

“Gin.”

“What?”

“How old is this child.”

“How old are you, brat?”

The girl thought for a moment, slowly ticking off numbers on her fingers, before triumphantly replying, “14!  Maybe!”

You looked back to Gin, an incredulous laugh stuttering out from your throat.  

“Gin, what are you doing with these children.”

“Running a business,” he replied, looking at you curiously.  “Why?”

“Gin.  You are an adult man.”

“And.”

“You are running a  _ business  _ . . . with  _ children. _ ”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not like I’ve been gone for centuries, Gin, isn’t it still creepy for a 20-something year old man to be hanging out with teenagers?  How have the police not broken down your door yet?  Aren’t there  _ laws  _ in place for stuff like this?”

“Don’t care,” Gin and the girl chimed in unison, and you were almost certain a vein burst in your forehead.

“Gin, I know samurai life is lonely but that really is no excuse for –”

You were interrupted by the sound of indignant wheezing, and you looked to see a boy who couldn’t have been more than 16 emerge from Gin’s other side, eyes so wide they were peeking out over his round glasses.  

“And how old’s this one?” you sighed, gesturing to the boy lazily.

“I don’t know.”

“16!  I’m 16, you good-for-nothing!  I’m practically a man!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Gintoki said, waving a hand to quell his outburst.

“Wait,” the glasses kid said, shaking his head and staring at you with smaller, browner eyes, “how do you know Gin-san?”

“Ah –”

“Well –”

“You see –”

“You said you were too poor for a girlfriend!” the girl shouted indignantly, leaping upwards and karate-chopping the top of Gin’s head, knocking him so hard to the floor that he struggled to rise again.  

“And here I thought Gin-san was too lazy to actually go out and get a girlfriend,” the teenage boy mused, holding his chin with his hand thoughtfully.  “Honestly I’m surprised anyone could put up with him in the first place.”

“Wait –”

“Hold up . . . .,” Gintoki croaked from the floor, holding up a shaking finger indignantly.

“Wait a minute!” you squawked.  “We’re not –”

“No, no, of course not,” Gin said in a high-pitched voice, waving a hand dismissively, “what’s gotten into you, Pattsuan –”

“You honestly think I would date this loser?”

“Okay, now that’s hurtful.”

“Wait, wait,” the boy broke in, crossing his arms, “so how  _ do  _ you know each other, then?”

“Childhood friends?” you suggested, looking to Gin for support.

“No, no, not quite, more like teenage-hood friends,” he countered.  “We both were part of a – uh – club –”

“Yeah, yeah, a club, a, uh, fencing club!”

“Yes, yes, and we – well –”

“Competed against Amanto from all over the galaxy.  It was a famous club you see, run by um – ah – what was his name Gin surely you remember –”

“Oh, yes, of course, it was, um Seisen, yes Seisen that was it –”

“Gin-san you just reversed the word ‘sensei,’” Glasses Boy sighed.

“What?  That’s preposterous, he was a great man, one of the best men I’ve ever met –”

“You two are terrible liars, you know,” the boy sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand.  “We should at least know each other’s names first, shouldn’t we?  I’m Shimura Shinpachi, that’s Kagura.  The dog’s Sadaharu.  Nice to meet you.”  He bowed low, Kagura as well, although the effect was diminished by the packet of sukonbu clutched in her hand, and the dog yipped.

“Ah, likewise,” you supplied, sketching a quick bow in return.  “I’m, well –”

“Just call her Touya,” Gin drawled, flopping down on a couch in the middle of the room and stacking his feet on the coffee table in front of him.  

“Don’t give me the same name as your goddamn sword!  What is that, some weird fetish you have?!” you retorted sharply.  

“The sword’s name is Touya _ ko,  _ there’s a ‘ko’ in there!”

“What’s the difference?!”

“Well, what do we call you then?” Kagura chimed in, clambering over the back of the couch to perch next to Gin.  

“Uh . . . well . . . .,” you mused, scratching the back of your head.  “Anything you want, I guess.”

“Don’t you have a name?” Shinpachi asked curiously, sitting on Gin’s other side and gesturing for you to take a seat on the couch opposite them.

“Haha, uh, no,” you laughed, sitting down carefully.  

“You . . . don’t have a name?”

“Uh . . . yeah.”  

“Alright then, Girlfriend-san,” Kagura intoned, and Gin’s hand descended onto her head with swift ferocity.

“I’m not his girlfriend!”  

“She’s not my girlfriend!”  

“Wait, wait, Girlfriend-san –”

“Fine, call me Touya!  Anything!  Anything’s fine!”

“Why don’t you have a name?”

Your expression stiffened, and you fidgeted in your seat.  “I don’t know.  Why don’t you have good vision?  Why isn’t Gin a functional member of society?”

“Hey –”

“I just . . .,” you shrugged awkwardly, “. . . don’t.  Parents weren’t around long enough to give me one,  I guess.”

“Girlfriend-san . . .,” Kagura blubbered, blowing her nose in Gin’s sleeve, “that’s so sad I could cry. . . .!”

“Oi!  Not in my sleeve you ingrate!  Find something else to blow your nose in!  Your mutant dog’s right there, isn’t he!”

“Maybe if you told us a little about yourself, we could give you a nickname,” Shinpachi suggested, but that only made you fidget worse.

“Listen, kid, it’s . . . complicated.”  You looked to Gin, and he gave a small nod.  “You guys know that Gin fought in the Joui War, right?”  They both nodded, but from the puzzled looks on their faces, he hadn’t told them much else.  Actually, knowing Gin, it hadn’t been voluntary in the first place.  “Well, I did, too.”

“A female warrior?” Shinpachi asked.

You shook your head wryly, reaching up to pull your hair back to imitate the length it had once been, and understanding dawned on both of their faces.  “I enlisted under a fake name,” you explained, letting your hair fall back down.  “The government was so desperate for troops at that point that they didn’t even bother to background check me.”  

“Wait, so why are you here?” Shinpachi asked, and you ground your jaw for a moment.

“Sentimentality, I suppose,” you laughed bitterly.  “Tatsuma sent me,” you directed at Gin, and his eyebrows twitched imperceptibly.  “Ever since you left, I was looking for you.”  You reached over the table to hand him the slip of paper.  “He recommended I go find ‘Kin-chan,’ a friend of his.  Of course the dumbass had no idea that he had gotten your name wrong.”

“Of course,” Gin sighed, tossing the paper over his shoulder.  “At least the job is done.”

“Thank you for your business, No-name-san,” Kagura chirped.

“What are you going to do now?” Shinpachi asked.

The earth may as well have suddenly tilted and thrown you against the wall.  You slumped back against the couch, chewing on the inside of your cheek.  

“I – I don’t know.  I’ve been searching for this idiot for years, and now that I’ve finally found him –,” you tilted your head against your shoulder, staring at a spot a couple feet above Gintoki’s silver permed head.  “Huh.”

“Great job, Shinpachi-kun, you broke her,” Gin scolded him.

“It’s not my fault her life’s purpose was to find a worthless excuse for an adult!”

“Hey, hey, why don’t you try respecting your elders, young man –”

“Maybe I’ll go work at a cabaret bar,” you pondered.  Gin’s hands twitched from where they were sitting in his lap.  “Or I could go travel the galaxy with Tatsuma.  Provided I can find him again, that is.  There really isn’t much for a woman to do besides get married and pop out devilspawn children, is there?  What do you say, Gin?” you joked, rolling your head up to look at him, and he choked.  Kagura punched him in the back so hard that he almost crashed through the coffee table.  “Whatever,” you sighed as Gin started hacking like a cat with a hairball, trying to bring in air through his thoroughly dented ribs.  “I’ll figure it out in the morning.”

“Hang in there, No-Name-Girlfriend-san,” Kagura said encouragingly.  

You groaned, throwing your hands up in the air.  “Christ, just call me anything you want, I don’t care anymore.”  

“See, what did I say, Shinpachi-kun?” Gin said, inching his way back up to the sofa.  “You can’t just force a nickname, you have to let it happen gradually, which is why I say we should call her Touya-san –”

“Just because I look like that  _ one  _ lake statue –”

“You have to admit it was a striking resemblance.”

“I don’t have time for this,” you groaned, standing up from the sofa, “the day’s getting on and –”  You stopped mid-turn, realization punching you in the gut.  “Oh.”

“‘Oh?’  Oh, what?  Is this the ‘I just realized I have a coupon for a parfait’ type of ‘Oh,’ or ‘I just dropped my firstborn son down a drain’ ‘Oh?’” Gintoki asked.  

“What kind of comparisons are those?!” Shinpachi cried.

“I . . . don’t have anywhere to stay tonight.”

“And.”

“And?!  And everything!” you rounded on Gin irritably.  “Do you even know what I, a young, beautiful woman, would be subjected to out there?!”

“You’re a samurai, you can handle it,” Gin replied nonchalantly, digging in his ear with his pinky finger.

“We should at least let her stay the night, Gin,” Shinpachi scolded.

“Absolutely not.  A woman can’t room with men, it’s a recipe for disaster.”

“Kagura stays here.”

“Kagura is still a child, who knows what you would do to a fully-grown woman, Shinpachi-kun.”

“What I would do?!  What would  _ you  _ do?!”

“Besides, we have no room for her.”

“She can sleep on the sofa!”

“Of course not, how can a true man let any woman sleep on a sofa.”

“How can a true man let any woman sleep on the street?!”

“We don’t have any extra futons.”

“I do!” Kagura called.  

You watched the three of them bickering, and something heavy settled in your chest.  So he had found new friends after all, new people to talk with, laugh with, to fight and eat and share his life with.  The war had not touched this corner of the world in a long while, and all you were doing was bringing it back to him.  You felt like a dog digging up an old kill, and it made you sick.  Here he was, looking as if he had never had to touch a sword in his life, and here you were, with your stupid sentimentality, dragging yourself all the way here to see the face of someone who hadn’t liked yours enough to stick around after it was all said and done  

“Look,” you interrupted,  holding up a hand.  “Gin, if you don’t want me to stay, I won’t.  I’m sure I can figure something out.”

Gin quickly adopted the expression of someone who had just swallowed a rock, and stewed for a few moments before sighing dramatically.  “I  _ guess  _ I can let you stay.”

You balked in surprise, and Kagura leapt up with a cheer.  “Finally!  A sister of my very own!”

“Ahaha, I don’t know about that –,” you stammered nervously, wishing for nothing more than to leave this building, this life, this man who wore the skin of someone who you should have realized had died long ago, but she was already wrapping herself around your waist, and would have knocked you to the floor if you hadn’t regained your balance.  Your impeccable balance skills, however, were rendered moot when Sadaharu decided to join her.

“But wait!” Gintoki suddenly cried, his eyebrows narrowed. 

“What is it now?” you groaned, crawling out from under Sadaharu and standing up shakily.

“I can’t have you drooling all over my couch.  They were 1000 yen, you know.”

“Huh?” All desire to sleep on such cheap couches suddenly left you, and even though you had camped on much worse the thought of all the things that could have happened on 1000 yen couches made your stomach churn.

“Well, Kagura’s closet is too small . . .,” Shinpachi said dubiously.  “She could always come to the dojo, there’s plenty of room.”

“Aha!  I’ve exposed your perverted plot, Shinpachi-kun!  What were you planning to do with an adult woman in your house, hmmmm?  What sorts of inappropriate thoughts have you been thinking?!”

“Gin, I’m not a blow-up doll, I do have a say in what –”

“Then where do you propose we put her?!  On the bathroom floor?!” Shinpachi retorted furiously, a vein bulging in his temple.

“Well, now that you mention it –”

“Oh, I could just share with Gin,” you said suddenly.

The whole room turned to look at you, and you wondered if all this was a dream after all, and here you were standing naked in front of a should-be-long-dead war buddy and two teenagers, and you were wondering how many bashes it would take against the corner of the coffee table to wake you up when Gin said, “Well, there you have it.”

In the next moment you learned just how resilient Gin was, as he was thrown across the room by the combined force of Kagura and Shinpachi, each yelling about perverted plans and honor and samurai values, and as your poor old comrade flew by you grabbed him by the collar, roughly jerking him to a stop.  

“He and I roomed together all through the war,” you explained, shaking him to emphasize the point.  “He may be a good-for-nothing lazy piece of shit, but he’s got some honor.”

“Oi, were all those derogatory adjectives entirely necessary –”

Shinpachi threw his hands up in defeat, and stalked off, muttering about bushido and respect, while Kagura just shrugged and tottered off to her closet in the corner of the room.

“Happy you have me all to yourself now, Gin?”

“Please, you know me better than that,” he scoffed, releasing himself from your grip and making his way towards the double set of rice paper doors on the opposite walls.

“Do I, now?” you muttered, hands tucked into your kimono sleeves to stop their shaking.

* * *

“You’re gonna change here?” Gintoki asked incredulously from where he was sitting on top of his futon, placed three feet away from yours as per his suggestion, struggling to tug his boots off.

“You’ve already seen everything worth seeing,” you retorted, untying your obi from around your waist, and shrugging your kimono off your shoulders, your back to him.  “And that isn’t a whole lot.”

“It’s not my fault you decided to change right next to me – where did you get that?”

You looked over your shoulder at him quizzically.  

“Get what?”

“Oh, I guess you must have been born with that huge scar across your back, then.”

“Oh, that,” you replied nonchalantly, pulling a loose yukata and sash from where they had been tucked against your chest and shrugging into them.  “I was with a mercenary guild at the time, posing as a minor noblewoman to get information on some noble who was accused of corruption or something.  I had a wooden post strapped to my back to keep my posture straight.  Long story short, I was found out, and soon found myself surrounded by the noble asshole’s guard.  One managed to get behind me and slice me open.  The post’s the only thing that kept my spine from being cut in half.”

“How’d you get out?”

“My mercenary buddies were already around to finish the nobleman off, a few of them happened over as I was trying to fight five guys with a two foot gash in my back, and they carried me to the hospital.”

“So you managed to make some friends after all.”

You shot him a glare.  “They left me at that hospital.  Assholes didn’t even bother picking up the tab, I was in debt for two years.”  

“And what about that one on your shoulder?” he gestured with his head, now working on the other boot.

“Some creep cornered me in an alley, got one good hit in with a steak knife before I punched him into the next century.” You rolled your shoulder involuntarily at the memory, and Gin’s boot hit the floor with a thud.  “You remember these, though, don’t you?” you went on, twisting and pulling your yukata aside so he could see the smatter of scar tissue puckered up and down your right side.  “From when that Amanto bomb went off in the middle of our formation.”

“How could I forget, you almost broke my hand when Zura was getting the shrapnel out of you.”

“It’s not my fault he hadn’t exactly graduated from medical school.”

“That hand still isn’t right, you know,” he sighed, flopping it up and down for you to see.

“You shouldn’t have offered for me to hold it, then!” you huffed.

“You were slamming your hand down like a pinned boxer, how could I not, being the gentleman I am,” he said, wiggling out of his yukata and undoing the clasps on his black v-neck.  For some inexplicable reason, the sight made you uncomfortable, and you quickly turned away from him again.  

“Gentleman, sure, a few of these scars are from you.”

“Likewise,” he said, and you turned to look at him pointing to a whisker-thin scar snaking down his sternum before covering it with a pale blue t-shirt with a picture of a strawberry on it.

You exhaled sharply, and pulled up your sleeve, gesturing to a series of cuts on your right bicep.  He frowned.

“Touché,” he grumbled, and crashed back onto his futon, the moonlight streaming in through the window to line the top of his chest, and you watched as it rose and fell with his breathing.

You settled down into your own futon, and sighed.

“Why didn’t you tell them?” he asked, just as you were fluttering on the edges of sleep. 

“Tell them what?” 

“The part about me being the famous Shiroyasha, and, you know.  All the other not-so-nice bits.”

“The Shiroyasha is dead,” you replied simply, hunkering down further into your blankets and turning towards the window your futon was shoved up against.  “He died years and years ago, on the day the Joui War finally ended.  I saw no point in mentioning him.”

The only sound for a few moments was the faint hum of the city outside, the raucous calls of drunken men and the high, sweet voices of the hostesses serving them.

“You know, if you snore too loud I’ll kick you out for good,” you heard Gintoki mumble, and you snorted.

“I missed you, too.”


	2. Don't Panic, Wait Until the Alcohol Sets In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 2!!!!! will probably be updating with more of this tomorrow (tuesday) and hello, my old heart on wednesday. 
> 
> i hope you enjoy!! writing gintoki is so fun

The unspoken laws of the samurai barracks had been pretty clear.  Stray from your bedroll in the middle of the night, and you could very well wake up with a fist in your face.  Gin, however, had never been much for laws, and it seemed that not a lot had changed, because you woke up with his head in your lap.

His stirring woke you, but you were far from being surprised.  You had woken up with worse parts of his body on top of you.  

“Ah, what’s this, what’s this?” he mumbled sleepily.  “A cloud, I’ve fallen asleep on a cloud, ah, I’ll fall and break my neck for sure, and then I won’t be able to eat anymore sweets. . . .  Hey, cloud-san, you mind bringing me back down to Earth, I’ll treat you to a parfait, I swear –”

“Gin,” you yawned, nudging his head with the heel of your palm.  

“Ah, you know my name – wait, God, is that you?  Listen, listen, about that time when –”

“Gin,” you insisted, nudging him harder.  

“I know, I know, it was bad, but really who was at fault –”

“ _ Gin!”  _ you rapped on his head like you would a door – and did it just echo?  He rolled over slowly, his eyes blinking open and then blinking some more, before he shot up so fast that his forehead collided with yours.  

The next few moments were a slew of moans and curses as the two of you curled up into balls and cradled your heads, each cursing the other with language that grew more colorful as the seconds wore on.

“Idiot,” you grumbled, slowly sitting up and massaging your brow.  “What did you think was going to happen?  The laws of physics don’t cease just for you, you know.”

“I was having a nice conversation with God right before you decided to wake me up, this must be divine retribution,” he grumbled back, rolling away from you.  

“That was  _ me,  _ you dumbass.”

“No wonder heaven smelled so much like sweat.”

“I hate you,” you sighed, sitting up and turning towards the window, rolling your yukata off of your shoulders.  

“I’m sure the neighbors are appreciating the show,” he commented, pointing towards the open window you were currently facing.

“Would you rather I faced you?” you retorted irritably.

“Like a true gentleman, I’ll just face away from you.”

“Fine, fine, whatever,” you sighed, as he dutifully whipped around, removing his own shirt as well, and you blinked at the sight of his back muscles.  Five years sure could fill a guy out, huh.

You stood slowly, uncomfortably aware of how easy it would be for Shinpachi or Kagura or both to open the door and get an eyeful before you could cover yourself.  You slid into your kimono slip, fastening it around your waist with nimble fingers, and picked up your kimono from where you had dumped it unceremoniously onto the floor.  “You can look now,” you said, and he turned as you were crossing the kimono flaps over your waist, hiking up the fabric with a tying ribbon tucked against your shoulder.

Grumbling to yourself, you finagled the ribbon down your chest and to your waist, somehow managing to get all of the fabric in the right place, tying the ribbon as tightly as you could, and tugging down the extra fabric over it.  You looked up from your work to see Gin struggling with his sash, trying to weasel it into something resembling a knot but the fabric kept slipping out of his grasp.  

“Need some help with that?” you chuckled, and he shot you a look.  

“I’ve been doing this by myself for years,” he replied stiffly, biting the end of his sash tucked against his shoulder and pulling it tight with his teeth.

“Poorly,” you snorted, and stepped over to him.  “Just let me, dumbass.”  You plucked the sash from his mouth and set about to tying it, your fingers light and skimming on his waist, and you were done in a matter of seconds, tucking the bow in on itself and adjusting the whole thing with a few tugs.  “There,” you said triumphantly, and then turned your back to him.  “My turn.”

“Huh.”  

“I tie your sash, you tie mine.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s scratching backs –”

“I have trouble with it too,” you admitted, and you heard him sigh exasperatedly, but his fingers still tugged the sash from your grip, the contact startling you.

He circled the wide ribbon of fabric once, twice around your waist, leaning his head over your shoulder to check that it was even.  He tied a neat bow in the back, straightened it, and stepped back. 

“There,” he mimicked, and you let out a breath you hadn’t realized you had been keeping prisoner, adjusting your sleeves and collar to distract yourself.

He smelled faintly like strawberry milk, you noted wryly.

* * *

The two of you emerged from his room to find Shinpachi and Kagura already there, lounging on the couch, the former eating a bowl of rice, the latter a package of sukonbu.

“Morning,” Gin drawled, raising a hand in greeting, and you inclined your head awkwardly.

“Aah, Pervert-san finally emerges,” Kagura commented, chewing contemplatively.  “How was your night, Pervert-san?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” Gin joked, and Shinpachi choked, grains of rice flying out of his mouth.  

“You’re just making it worse,” you chastised, giving the curly haired idiot a nudge with your shoulder.  “But, um –”  You were rusty at this, you realized as you bowed to the three of them.  “Thank you for, uh, letting me stay here.”

Shinpachi was the only one who bowed back, which you should have expected.  

“Where are you gonna go now?” Gin asked, settling down onto the couch.  

You shrugged.  “There’s lots of jobs for women in this part of town.  I’ll be alright.”

“My sister’s a hostess!” Shinpachi interjected, giving you a reassuring smile.  “It’s not as bad as it seems, I promise.  Especially for a war veteran like you, the patrons should be no trouble at all.”

“You could work here for a while.  Until you make enough money to move out,” Gin suggested.   

“Gin-chan never pays us though –” Kagura began, before Gin clamped a hand over her mouth. 

“What she  _ means  _ to say is that we have a steady flow of cash –”

“It’s not nice to lie, Gin-san,” Shinpachi said exasperatedly.

“It’s not  _ lying,  _ I’m just  _ embellishing –” _

“No, really,” you broke in.  “I can’t intrude.  You have a new life here, and I’m not a part of it.  It’s alright.”

“That’s so romantic that I might throw up.”

“I might decide to kill you for the rent money after all.”

“Oh, you don’t mean that, you love me too much,” Gin sighed, settling back lazily on the couch.  

“Try me,” you retorted, crossing your arms.

“See, Shinpachi, they really are like a married couple.  You owe me 500 yen.”

“Dammit –”

“Oi, brats, I’m not a racehorse.” 

“Gin,” you sighed, and he looked up at you, and you had forgotten just how red his eyes were, “really.  It was my own sentimentality that dragged me here.  I should have forgotten about the war long ago.  Plus, three’s the magic number, you know, and making three four will just bring bad luck.”

Shinpachi and Kagura had fallen silent, but it was like they didn’t even exist, it was just Gin’s dead-fish eyes staring into yours, half-lidded and just as tired as you remembered them, but suddenly he scoffed, and broke away from your gaze.  “I don’t believe in bad luck.  Stay as long as you want.”

“You were looking for him for a long time, weren’t you?”  Shinpachi broke in, and you looked at him in surprise.  “You can’t just leave, like that.”

“Yeah, yeah!” Kagura piped up.  “Gin should pay you for all the time you wasted on him!”

“Hey, wait a minute, brat –”

“Honestly,” you insisted, holding up your hands, “you should just forget I was ever here.  I’ll be okay.  Maybe I’ll go buy a farm in the countryside, make a living off of crops or something.  Isn’t that what all the broke samurai are doing these days?”

“I’ve known you for a while, you know,” Gin said, and he sure did have a talent for making you feel like someone had just punched you in the gut.  “And I know for a fact you would go insane out there all by yourself.”

You stifled a laugh.  “Didn’t help that you were following me around all those years.” You took a seat on the sofa across from him, and Kagura grinned at you. “So what now?  When’s the first job?” you asked, glancing at the clock on the wall.

“Whenever someone comes by,” Gin replied, falling sideways and stretching out on the sofa, fishing out a copy of JUMP from under the coffee table.

“Aren’t you a little old for JUMP, Gin.”  His eye twitched. 

“Can’t a man read his stories in peace.”

“Now I see why you get along so well with children. . . .,” you mumbled, tentatively stretching out in the same fashion and settling your hands atop your stomach.  “So that’s it?  We just lay here until someone drops by?”

“Yep.”  He ruffled the pages and unfolded a dog-eared place marker.  You sighed contentedly, stretching your arms over your head, and Gin peeked over at you, eyebrow raised.  “When was the last time you relaxed?” he asked.  You thought about that for a second, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully, and he groaned loudly.  “Have you really spent all these years just looking for me?”

“Well, yeah,” you said, turning your head to look at him.  “What else was I supposed to do?”

“Well, I don’t know, something else.  Make some friends, start a business, beat up some bad guys, become a stage performer, go on a quest for a mythical dragon’s jewel, join the yakuza and fight aliens, something like that.”

“Well, call me traditional,” you said dryly, “but I couldn’t let it go.”

“What’s the point then?” Gin sighed, returning to his JUMP.  “What, were you hoping for some sort of veteran’s reunion?”

“Well, it wouldn’t  _ hurt –” _

“If you can get Zura to agree to that I will eat one of my boots.”

“I’m shocked you’d pass up an opportunity to get drunk, Gin.”

Silence, for a few moments.

“You could have mentioned the alcohol part sooner.”

* * *

You had forgotten how much of a lightweight Gin was.  After one and a half bottles of sake you were feeling slightly tipsy, whereas Gin was having the time of his life, babbling nonsensically, red in the face and smiling like an idiot.

“An’ then an’  _ then  _ –,” he was saying, gesturing lazily with his hand, “he gets up!  This lil old man who I just – just, you know threw a rock at, he just, he just gets up, and smiles, and it was crazy, you know, and –”

“I’m gonna regret this,” you sighed, burying your head in your hands.  

“Hey, hey, whatcha doin’?” he slurred, as he downed the last of the dish and handed the bottle back to Otose.  “We’re just getting  _ started.” _

“I think you two are done for the night,” Otose sighed, swatting aside the laughable attempt Gin made to grab a fresh bottle from behind her back.  “Get out of here before you cause a ruckus in my bar.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Gintoki intoned, saluting clumsily, as he grabbed you by the upper arm and half-dragged you out of the bar.

“Are we going home?” you asked, struggling to your feet and rubbing your eyes.  It had been a long while –  _ more  _ than a long while, in fact, since you had been this drunk, being on the run from the bakufu didn’t exactly allow for rest stops.  

“What?” Gin said. “Psh.  The nigh’sstill young, we have puh- _ len _ -ty to do.”

“You’re gonna have to carry me home,” you moaned, placing a hand on his shoulder for support, and he linked arms with you.

“We’re celebratin’!” he yelled, throwing up a fist and grinning at you.  “Two war buddies, together at last!”

“No thanks to you,” you murmured, because dammit, you never could keep your idiot mouth shut when it mattered, but he just staggered into you, laughing.  Whether it was some sort of drunken hug or just him stumbling over his own feet, you didn’t know, and were too tipsy to do anything more than pay it a passing thought.

“Past’s the past,” he slurred, arm crashing onto your shoulders and wheeling you towards another bar, yellow lantern swaying outside and the sounds of noisy patrons filtering through the air.  “Tonight, s’just you n’ me,” he stumbled close as he said this, sake-filled breath choking your nostrils, but the temperature of his breath on your neck compared to the chilly night air made you shiver, “and let’s jus’ drink!”

“Any more for you and I’ll have to carry  _ you  _ home,” you warned, but followed him inside, allowing him to lead you to two unoccupied seats at the bar.  

“Good!” he crowed, slapping a bundle of wrinkly bills on the counter.

You sat tentatively, trying to ignore the way the bartender’s face was slipping in and out of focus, and happily enclosed your hands around the cool mug of beer he offered you.  Gintoki was already in a heated debate with a patron, something about a hostess club on the far side of town and how far a man’s afro could extend from the side of his head, but your ears had started to ring and you couldn’t be bothered to pick out more than a few words.  

“I  _ firmly  _ believe –,” Gin was yelling, beer sloshing dangerously in his mug as he gestured, “ – that this man’s hair was two – no, no,  _ three  _ –  _ three  _ meters in circumference –”

Another patron laughed, a middle-aged man with a necktie around his head, and swatted Gin on the back, sloshing his beer all over the bar counter.  “Tell ‘em the one with the Yagyuu, Gin, the one with the mayo freak and the sadist –”

“Nah, nah, I think he should tell us about this new kid he brought with him –”

“Yeah, yeah, who’s she –”

You blinked, alcohol-fogged brain trying to snap to attention, fingers twitching for a sword that was no longer there.  Gin only snorted, sloshing more alcohol as he jerked a thumb at you.

“Her?  She’s just a crusty old samurai, there’s nothin’ nice about  _ her. _ ”

“Coming from the guy who hangs in dive bars for fun,” you retorted at rapid fire speed, downing a quarter of your beer just to be contrary.

“These are the places where  _ gods’r  _ born, Touya-chan, you have to crawl through the piles of shit before you can ascend to the heavens with the golden beetles, like Shinji-kun, like Unit-01 –”

“Creepy, and no.”

“ _ Well,  _ the next time I decide to slather myself in honey and stand naked in the woods,  _ you  _ aren’t invited.”

“I fear for your children.”

“Kagura’s s’ _ fine,  _ she’s fine, I leave her home all the time, she’s got the dog –  _ god  _ the dog I need to feed the dog – what a weird word, you know, dog –”

You began to tune him out, attention wavering again, and for some reason your eyes focused on his head, and the golden light gathered around it as the lamps hanging from the bar’s low ceiling swung in the commotion.  He was laughing, guffawing, and you hadn’t ever seen that much expression on his face, and it made something warm squirm in your chest.  

You threw back the rest of your beer, hoping it would dull the sound of your heart in your ears as he turned to you, grinning, red eyes looking, for once, alive.  You had never noticed how  _ large  _ his arms were, really, as he slapped a few coins on the bar.  Perhaps it had been the loose-fitting samurai clothes, but now with his new ensemble you could hardly look away, and were finding it harder and harder to as the alcohol continued to numb your senses.  

In fact, you were finding it harder and harder to believe that this all wasn’t some twisted fever dream, as you lay convulsing from sickness in some dank alley, because his hair was shining in the light and his hands were just as callused as you remembered them, with the tiny scar on his thumb and the way his once-broken ring finger still crooked slightly to the left.  

He had forgotten about you for the moment, but that was alright, because for the first time you allowed yourself to revel in the fact that you had finally,  _ finally,  _ found him, after all the years, all the unmarked graves, all the false leads, he was here, in front of you, laughing and smiling and drinking like no tomorrow.

“Heyyyyy,” he said, suddenly, almost accusingly, and your head snapped up from where it had been resting in the palm of your hand.  “Youuu’rreeee not  _ drinking _ .”

“I’m drinking plenty,” you scoffed back, and your slight sway as you tried to focus on his face should have been evidence enough, honestly. 

“Not nearly enough,” he scoffed, sliding the new mug of beer the bartender gave him over to you with deftness he should not have still possessed.  “This’s a  _ reunion,  _ you need to  _ celebrate _ .” 

“I’m celebrating plenty,” you argued, lips twisting pugnaciously, “but it would be nice if we could get home before  _ daybreak.” _

“Daybreak’s the absolute  _ best  _ time of day to be drunk,” Gintoki said, placing a hand on his chest in mock sincerity.  “Why, the sunrise, the singin’ birds, the waves of stench rising off the streets in the light of the new day . . . practically poetic if you ask me.”

“Yeah, yeah, poetry, sunrise, whatever.  All I’m sure of is that we should get home because you are currently drunk enough for both of us.”

“Am not,” he insisted, trying his best to glare menacingly at you, but all you did was raise an eyebrow, and poke him resolutely in the side of the head.

His eyes flickered for a moment and he was tumbling out of his chair, arms flailing like cold noodles, and you watched wryly as he unsuccessfully tried to prevent his head from knocking against the floor.  

“As I thought,” you scoffed, stumbling towards him to heave him to his feet and subsequently hiccuping with the effort.  

He giggled, leaning in close to your face, and leered, “Yoooouuu’rree  _ drunk. _ ”

“Y- _ You’re  _ –,” you hiccupped, clapping a hand to your mouth in frustration, and he burst out laughing, specks of beer launching themselves from his mouth.  “W-We’re going home,” you tried to assert, locking your fingers around his arm, but they had gone numb, and you fumbled against his yukata as you tried to drag him out the door.  

“Who needs  _ home, _ ” he snorted.  “Home s’where the heart is, and the heart wants what the heart wants –”  You managed to drag him past the threshold, but that’s where he dug his heels into the ground, whining, “My wallet’s s’not even  _ close  _ to being empty.”

“Yes, well,” you gulped, because the sound was oddly distorted, and wow you had not been drunk in a very long time.  “Give it to me as a parting gift for when I start my new life.”

“What life?” he snickered, and the punch you delivered to his arm nearly sent him into the ground with how unbalanced he was.  “‘Sides, you have a job.  With us.”

“I can’t stay with you forever,” you grunted, hauling him down the street with brute force alone.  “Shinpachi’s sister . . . a hostess, right?  I’ll jus’ work with her.”  You kept wavering between patches of lucidity, but you grit your teeth and tried to retain your mental filter.  “Won’t be that bad.”

His brow furrowed, his feet scraping against the ground as he fell silent for a moment.  “Don’t . . . do that,” he finally said, red eyes finding yours amidst the shining Kabuki-cho lights.  “I’ll give you a paycheck n’ everything.”

“Aren’t you sweet,” you said dryly.  “We really should get home.”

“We’re goin’ the wrong way.”

“. . . Are not.”

“Are too!  ‘S that way!”  He pointed with a shaky finger in the opposite direction, but there were so many flashing pink billboards and people milling around that you could glean nothing familiar from either direction.  Deciding, perhaps rather poorly, to trust his drunken judgement, you turned the two of you around, heading in the new direction as he humphed in smug approval.

You trudged in silence, his arm hot across your shoulders, the edge of his yukata sleeve tickling the back of your neck.  He was humming something to himself, head dangling towards the ground, his free arm swaying in front of him.  The street in front of you seemed to go on forever, warping slightly in your drunken vision, and you shook your head, trying to straighten everything out.  

All that did was make everything worse, so you just grit your teeth and concentrated on the two or three feet of ground you could clearly see in front of you.  You watched your own feet moving forward, forward, forward, Gin’s stumbling steps flickering in and out of your peripheral vision, and you remembered –

It had been a night like that one, the night air cool, the alcohol flowing, the small village the Joui had taken up residence in throwing a feast in honor of their passing through.  You remembered stumbling down the street, the paper lanterns hung outside houses swimming in your vision, but it hadn’t just been one pair of stumbling drunken feet in your vision.  You remembered Gin on one side of you, Tatsuma on the other, all three of you supporting each other as you made your staggering way down the avenue.  You remembered singing too loudly, laughing too hard, your giggling hiccups bursting out of your throat and into the cool air.  Gintoki had been slurring something too unintelligible for you to make out, head occasionally bumping against yours, and you had sneezed when his silver hair had tickled too close to your nose.  Tatsuma had been attempting to sing along with you, helmet dipping low into his vision, but he hadn’t known most of the words and had supplemented what little he knew with loud, idiotic laughs in various keys.  Zura had been following a little off to the side, trying in vain to pretend that he didn’t know any of you, but the flush on his cheeks and the hiccups he tried to disguise as coughs were obvious enough.  

And Takasugi –

The memory was gone as soon as it came, some deeply ingrained self-preservation instinct ripping you from the flashback before you remembered something you didn’t want to.  You shook your head, alcohol-muddled thoughts turning round and round, trying to pick up where you had left off, but the miniscule part of your brain that was still sober enough to function was rioting in protest.  

You shrugged, and forgot all about it.  

Soon enough, you saw the Snack Otose sign growing larger in the distance, your vision warping the tet so heavily that you had difficulty reading it, and you cursed out loud. 

“Alright, asshole, you win,” you snapped as you hauled him up the outside stairs, to his loud and drunken enjoyment. 

“Ha  _ ha!  _ I’ve lived here for  _ years,  _ can’t fool  _ me  _ –”

You shushed him irritably as you rounded the corner of the house onto the landing, and he snapped his lips shut with a grumble.  It took him a good 30 seconds to find his keys in his seemingly cavernous pockets, and another 30 for him to actually get them into the lock.  Once you were in the foyer with the door shut and locked again behind you, you let go of him.  He plopped down onto the raised edge of the main floor, tugging on his boots to remove them.  

You were trying to remove your own shoes, kicking at them unsteadily with one hand against the wall, when the clumsy clacking of his buckles abruptly stopped, and you turned to look.

He had fallen asleep.  His head and shoulder were leaning against the wall, hands paused in the middle of tugging a boot off, snores fluttering the silver hairs drooping in front of his face.

“Stupid, stupid,” you mumbled, fumbling to finish removing your shoes.  You wobbled over to him, picked him up, slowly, by the armpits, and hauled him, boots scraping on the wood floor, to his room.  

You slid the rice paper open with a foot, making a loud clattering sound in the process, and winced when you remembered that Kagura was still asleep a few feet over.  You hauled Gintoki through the doorway, shouldering the door closed behind you, and heaved him onto his futon.  You knelt down next to him, unbuckled his boots and pulled them from his feet, untied his sash and folded it neatly next to him, unbuckled the belt holding his sword and did the same.  You slowly drew the wooden sword away from him, holding it up against the moonlight and rubbing your fingers lightly over the engraving.  

_ Lake Touya  _ you mouthed, blinking to clear your vision, cocking your head and watching as the moonlight shimmered on the black lacquer.  You put it down.

You turned him onto his side, threw the blanket over him, and stood there for a second, head reeling, before you undressed and crawled into bed.  

* * *

The nightmares woke you, as nightmares do.  However, you had long mastered the art of waking up from a screaming nightmare in utter silence, and the only sound as you stumbled out of Gin’s room was the whisper of the rice-paper door opening and shutting.  

You wound your way through the dark living room to the small kitchen tucked in the foyer, and latched your hands onto the edge of the sink, bowing your head and breathing in sharply through your nose, out through your mouth.

In, out, in, out, breathe breathe  _ breathe – _

Soft padded footsteps sounded from behind you and your breathing abruptly stopped, your lips pressed tightly together to muffle all sound, every nerve in your body vibrating like a plucked harp string.

“You still get them, huh,” Gin said.

At the sound of his voice your breath left you in an agonizing burst, and you curled even farther over the sink, your nails scratching against the metal basin.  

“I’m sorry,” you gasped, gritting your teeth together to stop their clattering, “I’ve only just arrived and I’m already causing you trouble.”

“Does this happen often?” was all he said.

“Less than it used to,” you replied, taking in a sharp breath through your nose and exhaling shakily through cracked lips.  

“Is it the heads?”

“You know me so well, Gin,” you snorted, smiling wryly.  “You know, I used to pray, every single night, that the next day I wouldn’t see yours or Zura’s or Tatsuma’s head by the riverside.  I had never believed in anything before, but I hoped whatever it was that I was supposed to believe in would take pity on me, just that once.  I hoped it would pull its punches, just for a little bit.”  You inhaled shakily.  “We  _ knew  _ them, Gin.”

“I know.”

“How do you do it?  How do you stay so – so  _ free?   _ No one would ever guess from looking at you that – shit, Gin, here I am, whining like a damsel in distress.  I really haven’t changed, huh?”

You felt the rush of breath as he exhaled heavily, you heard the scritching of his hand at the back of his neck, and the air was suddenly far too thick and awkward between you, making you bow your head even farther over the sink.  You did not want to turn around, you did not want to see the way he leaned away from you, from the conversation, a half-preserved sense of decency the only thing keeping him from striding out of the room.  

You snorted.  “You sure are good at this sentimental stuff, aren’t you?”  Swallowing the lump of anxiety in your sternum, you turned around, then, the edge of the sink pressing into your back.  He backed up a few centimeters, head bowed, and his eyes were hidden in the half-light filtering in through the windows, and you were glad, because you did not want to see what they held.  “We aren’t kids anymore, huh?”

He exhaled sharply through his nose, the sort of not-really-a-laugh that you had come to associate with late nights by a dying fire, the scent of blood in everyone’s nostrils and fingers itching quietly for the knives at their sides.  

“You really have become more feminine.  And here I thought all hope was lost.”  Your knee made contact with his crotch in seconds, so hard that you felt a bone somewhere in his pelvis click.  He stumbled forward, head dropping onto your shoulder as he moaned,  “Oh, my children, all my poor children, you’ve killed them all, murdered them, what if one turned out to be a concert pianist or the next shogun and now you’ve killed them, killed them all, how will the Sakata line continue now –”

“You idiot,” you murmured, resting your cheek against his head, his curly hair tickling at your nose.  “You really are an idiot.  How did you ever survive without me?  Please tell me you at least have some green tea around here somewhere.”

It was an old tradition, this.  Two worn-down samurai huddled together, knees tucked under legs and against chests, two mugs of slightly-expired green tea clutched in strong, shaking fingers.  The two of you sat for a long while, in utter silence, sipping your tea and watching as the light from the window turned to silver to pale white to pink to gold, and eventually Gin’s head collided with yours, his soft snoring reverberating through the hollows of your cheeks.  You placed the mugs neatly on the coffee table to be collected in the morning, and with one arm around his waist, you lugged him back to bed.

This was your job, you reflected dimly, as you threw the futon blankets over his chest and tucked in the edges around the mattress.  This was your job, to give and receive and tear out all the little pieces of shrapnel and sweep them delicately under the rug because the only thing war should be is forgotten.  And no one could blame you if you sent another prayer, the first in years, to the dawn sun peeking over the roof of the building across the street, to please, please, at least keep  _ him _ safe, because he had finally found peace and wasn’t that enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly all of the dialogue is so fun. it's a bit hard to write in general because i can't spice it up with gintama's regular puns and japanese pop culture allusions, since i don't know too much about either, and since gintama is such a visual manga/anime in terms of expression and story it's a bit hard to make writing have the same effect, but it's still fun!!
> 
> i'll see you guys tomorrow with more of this, and boy howdy am i having so much fun


	3. Time is An Illusion.  Lunchtime Doubly So

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't honestly believe i've updated for three days in a row. isn't this wild??? i'm having so much fun over here, i hope you're having as much fun reading this as i am writing it

“Tell me again why I let you convince me that this was even remotely a good idea.”

“Shut up, or we won’t get paid.”

“Did I mention that I hate you?  Because I hate you.”

“Money’s money, and the weird ones pay better.”

“ _ Bullshit _ ,” you hissed, viciously ripping the head off your costume so you could get some goddamn fresh air.  “This is just plain fucking  _ weird  _ and you’re  _ bullshitting  _ me.”

“Am not!,” he retorted as he, too, ripped his costume head off, fixing you with an irritated glare. “It’s not my fault the furries remembered where we live!”

“I did  _ not  _ –” you growled, poking a costume-covered finger into his costume-covered chest, “– hike  _ all the goddamn way to Edo  _ to dress up as an advertisement for a  _ fetishist bar. _ ”

“Then you’ve come to the  _ wrong  _ goddamn place,” he replied, jamming the large plush fox head back over his own.  “Here in Kabuki-cho the fetishists pay, and they pay well, so suck it up so I can eat some egg on rice for once in my miserable existence.”

“Why couldn’t you make your weird-ass children do this? Why did you have to drag  _ me  _ down with you?  They’re already on rock bottom, it’s not like they could go any lower!”

“You haven’t been in Kabuki-cho long enough if you think rock bottom is the lowest you can go,” he scoffed, turning away to wave a sheaf of flyers at a passing group of businessmen.  “Hey!  Hey, you!  Gross middle-aged men!  Have I got the place for you!”

“I don’t know if my dignity can take this,” you groaned, placing the fox head over yours and squinting through the mesh screen hidden in the back of its mouth.  “Also I can’t see a goddamn thing.”

“Samurai don’t have dignity anymore,” Gin intoned, stumbling into a lamppost.  “Ow.  If they did my wallet and my balls wouldn’t be as shriveled as they are.”

“Gross.  Don’t talk to me.”  You shoved a flier in the arms of a passing man, and turned away as he grumbled for you to take it back.  “I only associate with proper gentlemen.”

“ _ Ha!”  _ Gin barked, slapping a hand over his fur-covered knee, resulting in a rather unimpressive  _ fwump.   _ “You came to the wrong neighborhood!”

“Can we take a lunch break now?  Before I dig myself a hole in the ground to die in?” you whined, stuffing the fliers under one arm and wrestling the fur-covered gloves off of your hands.  

“Fine, fine, if you insist,” he groaned, settling down on the stoop of the bar and peeling the layers of fur and shame off of himself.  “Though I can’t guarantee it won’t taste like sweat and animal fur.”

“I don’t want to hear that,” you sighed, yanking down the zipper on the side of the costume and stepping out of it to stretch languidly, resisting the urge to grind the fox head and its creepy beady eyes into the dirt.  “I still can’t believe you managed to get me into a fox fursuit just for money.”

“Yeah, yeah, save it for when we get home,” he groused, digging two beat-up looking bento boxes and two packaged wooden chopsticks out of his yukata and handing one of each to you.  “Be careful with those, they cost 300 yen.”

“You are the cheapest son of a bitch I have ever had the misfortune to meet,” you said, tearing the chopstick’s paper packaging with your teeth and shaking them into your palm.  “Just tell me that what’s in this box is somewhat edible.”  You opened the lid tentatively, breaking your chopsticks in two, and stopped, staring incredulously at the contents.  “.....Gin.”

“Yeah?” he said through a mouthful of white rice.

“Am I on something or is this actually a delicious, wholesome meal?  I’m on something, aren’t I? Is Nausicaa going to fly down from the sky and hit me with her glider because what I am looking at cannot be something made by your disgusting middle-aged-man hands.”

“I am shocked and offended,” he huffed, dumping the last of the bento box’s contents down his throat and stuffing it back into his sleeve.  “I’ll have you know I’m the best cook in this family.”  

“And here I thought I would find a carton of strawberry milk and a corn potage nmaibo.  Frankly, Gin, I’m impressed that your diet is so nutritionally balanced.”

“Nutrition is a dirty word and you will not utter it in my presence,” he sniffed, standing back up and shimmying back into his fursuit.  “Now, hurry up, before they refuse to pay us for eating on the job.”

“Yeah, yeah, why don’t you grab a bullhorn while you’re at it, tell the whole city that we’re a bunch of desperate assholes who will wear fursuits for money –”

The rest of your heated protest was lost in the equally heated rush of air that nearly bowled you over, scorching the hair on the back of your neck, and the loud boom of an explosion that sent vibrations running up your legs and into your torso.  You whipped around, eyes wide, still gripping the fox head in your hands, to see a mushroom cloud of black smoke rising above the fetish bar, catching in the wind above the buildings and dissipating as more appeared to replace it.  

“Oh.  Oh, my god,” you stammered, as the commotion rose up around you.  “I didn’t do it.”

“What the hell are you talking about, are you saying you –” Gin coughed from behind you, running up next to you to stare at the cloud of smoke.

“I just said I didn’t!  I swear that I never, on my life –”

“Boss!” a voice called from behind you, and you whipped around to see the black and white cars of the Shinsengumi barrel into the street, a young man hanging out of the window of one of them, sandy brown hair covering dangerous red eyes and an accusing smirk as he adjusted the bazooka perched on top of his shoulder.  “Convenient you were here for this.”

The man nimbly leapt from the vehicle, adjusting his white ascot with one hand and nudging the bazooka into a more relaxed position with the other shoulder.  “How do you know the  _ cops?!”  _ you hissed, eyes darting from the suspiciously young-looking man to Gin and back.  “You’re too goddamn shady for the cops!”

“Good thing the cops are just about as backward as everything else in this city,” he replied, tossing the head of his costume to the side and raising a hand to the man.  “Oi!  Okita!  What the hell are you idiots doing here?”

“Could ask you the same question, Boss,” the man, Okita, responded breezily, stopping a few feet from Gin, eyes flicking to you and scanning you up and down.  You gulped, abruptly remembering you were dressed in a bright orange fox fursuit.  “Who’s your friend?  She wouldn’t happen to be a bomb-toting Joui terrorist, would she?  I would hate to have to bring her in for questioning.”

“Keep your sadism away from me,” Gin spat, crossing his arms and adopting a disgusted expression.  “Where’s the mayo freak?  He’s usually all over scenes like this.”

“He’s right in the middle of it, giving orders and being as intimidating as possible.  He sent me over here to scout for leads on whodunnit.  He really pisses me off.”  You began to edge away from the conversation, every nerve twanging with a distinct  _ danger danger this guy’d love to chop you into bits _ signal, but before you could move more than a few centimeters his eyes were on you, deep red pools that unsettled you somewhere in the pit of your stomach.  “You never answered my question, Boss,” he said, the breeziness in his tone unchanging, but there was a distinct edge in his eyes that didn’t speak of good things.  “Who’s your friend?”

Gin shrugged, apparently unfazed by the Shinsengumi member’s balefulness, and started digging in one ear with his pinky finger.  “Her?  An old war buddy.  Name’s Touya.”

“Gintoki, I swear to  _ god  _ –”

“War buddy, huh?  Looks more like another weird fetishist you managed to pick up,” Okita said, his smile about as sweet as battery acid.  “You’ve really gotta wonder what company you’ve been keeping, Boss.”

“I hope you included yourself on that list of weird fetishists, kid,” Gintoki replied irritably, scowling.  “Nevermind that, you really don’t have  _ any  _ idea who did this?”

“Well,” Okita sighed, scratching at the back of his head and letting the butt of his bazooka fall to the ground, leaning on it with an elbow, “there’s been a group calling themselves the Manjun out for blood recently, but I can’t imagine why they picked today of all days to cause trouble –”

You sucked in a breath, and Okita’s eyes shot to you.  He cocked his head curiously.  

“You know them or something?” Gin asked, eyeing you with the same level of curiosity, and you groaned, sliding a hand down your face.

“Remember that job I went on where I got the scar down my back?”

“Yeah.”

“You remember the guys that left me at the hospital to pay my own bills?”

“Yeah.”

“And you know how on jobs you’re supposed to split the bounty or whatever equally between everyone?”

“. . . .Yeah.”

“Haha, yeah, well, about that –”

* * *

“Wait wait wait wait  _ wait wait I swear to god I didn’t do it –” _

Okita’s katana swung down at you with intense ferocity, and you leapt aside, a small  _ eek  _ stuttering out of your mouth as the sword cleanly cut off some of the hairs on your fox costume.

“You know, this would be so much easier if you would just stand still and die,” Okita said casually, raising his sword and slowly advancing towards you once again.  

“You’re cra- _ azy!”  _ you shouted, dodging another swing mid-sentence, and you were trying to find some way to get that damn costume off of you without it costing you a limb.  “Okay, yes, it was my  _ fault _ – maybe – but I didn’t  _ do  _ it –”

“Tomato, tomahto,” the young police officer sighed, swinging his sword in a lazy circle.  “If I can just kill you and take all the money you owe them, it’ll be all the same to them, right?  Easier for me, too.”

“That’s not how the law works!”

“I don’t care.”

“Gin, aren’t you going to –,” another swing, coming dangerously close to your cheek, “–  _ fucking help me?!” _

He was leaning against a lamppost, watching the black smoke coil into the air, and at your shout he sighed exasperatedly.  “Oi, kid.”

“Yes, Boss?” the kid responded without missing a single beat, and you managed to wriggle one of your arms out of a sleeve seconds before it was taken off by a lightning-fast downward swing.  The tattered edges of what had once been a rented fox fetish costume’s sleeves fluttered in the wind, and you swore loudly.  

“God _ dammit,  _ now they’re not gonna  _ pay  _ us, and Gin’s gonna  _ bitch  _ and I’m gonna have to serve  _ men  _ for a living all because you crazy assholes don’t listen to a  _ word anyone fucking says – _ ”

“It’d be far more convenient for me if you  _ didn’t  _ kill her, thanks very much,” Gin interrupted, his voice unchanging, but Okita stopped all the same, sword still raised in preparation for an attack.  “Extra income, and all, you know.  If she dies now then no one’s gonna pay the bar tab.”

Okita’s impossibly red eyes turned to you.  “So you  _ do  _ have the money –”

“Alright, alright, how about this,” you interjected, shimmying out of your ruined costume and throwing it unceremoniously to the ground.  “I will go deal with the Manjun, Gin can continue being a lazy asshole, and you can continue killing people – who are not me – for fun.  Win-win, yes?  Please?  I’d rather this day not get any worse.”

Okita eyed you suspiciously, before slowly sheathing his sword, but you had no doubt that he could draw it and kill you in a single strike if he felt so inclined.  You sighed anyways, placing your hands on your knees and allowing yourself a few seconds to pant.  

“You’re lucky he’s feeling generous today,” Gin piped up, scratching at his stubble, and you felt the sudden inexplicable urge to punch him into the next century.

“Yeah, yeah, let me just go deal with these terrorists – alone – weaponless – all by myself – my poor, lonely, lonesome self – without even a katana to hold my soul –”

“Mhm, good luck with that.”

You ground your teeth viciously and spun around, stomping off, hands balled into fists, shedding bits of fake fur as you went and muttering angrily to yourself, “ _ stupid no-good son-of-a-bitch I hope you fall off a ledge you inbred ungrateful –” _

“Oi, Touya.”  You stopped, and turned to look at him, eyes narrowed.  “Try not to die, alright?”  He tapped his wrist to imitate a watch.  “Tab’s due by tonight.”

* * *

If a giant explosion hadn’t been more than enough to draw everyone’s attention, the Manjun felt it entirely necessary to hole up in a nearby building and take all of the office workers hostage.  Assholes.  You didn’t remember them being this dramatic back when you ran with them.

You walked a block or so down the road to the explosion site, coughing as the smoke grew thicker around you.  You saw the police barricade in the distance, complete with flashing red and blue lights and officers in crisp black uniforms, but you barely even paused.  You forced your way through the wooden blocks, and past a few officers before one managed to step in front of you, a young guy with black hair in a short bob and a round face, although his build suggested he was at the least in his 30s.  

“Excuse me, ma’am, but the Shinsengumi have blocked this area off –”  You shot him a look that you were sure was full of anger and pure murderous intent, and he backed off a step, brown eyes blinking a few times before he gulped and resumed his stance.  “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but this area is off-limits to civilians.”

“Listen,” you ground out, glancing down to where the kanji for  _ Yamazaki  _ was stitched in tiny gold letters into his collar, “Yamazaki.  Either you let me through, or you will make a certain sadistic superior more than a little irritated.  He already wants to kill me, you see, but something tells me that if it really gets down to it he won’t discriminate on who  _ exactly  _ he gets to see die.”

The man paled.  “Captain Okita sent you?” he asked, shifting nervously.  “You should have said so sooner.”

“Can I do anything right today?” you snapped to no one in particular, barrelling past as Yamazaki moved to the side, waving your hand in front of your face in a futile attempt to disperse the smoke choking your throat.  “God _ dammit.” _

You walked further into the now deserted street, past the crater where the bomb had gone off, and across the street to the office building where your old friends were reportedly holed up.  You saw a small gathering of Shinsengumi officers at the bottom of the steps up to the front of the building, one of them holding a megaphone and shouting up at one of the building’s open windows.

“ . . . and as we keep  _ telling  _ you, in a city of nearly 600,000 people, she could be literally anywhere, and she might not even  _ be  _ here –”

“Lies!  She’s right there!” a booming voice from the building responded, and you could just imagine someone pointing an accusing finger down at the street below.  How they could have seen you from all the way up there, you didn’t really want to know, so you just stepped forward, sighing.

“What the hell – ?!” the man with the megaphone exclaimed, whipping around, and you were greeted with spiky black hair and ice-blue eyes that narrowed in terrifyingly murderous anger.  “When the hell did you get here?!”  The cigarette between his teeth dangled precariously as he talked, bits of ash fluttering to the ground.  

“Ah, yes, hello.  If you have any complaints about my current status of being totally and utterly alive, please take them up with your sadistic subordinate and the guy with the weird curly silver hair a block down the road.  Thanks.”

As you tried to walk forward, a wall of black-and-gold suited officers blocked your path, and you threw your hands up in the air.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you pass without questioning you first,” the cigarette guy said, icy eyes studying you intensely, and you resisted the urge to punch him.  “Considering that you’re the one whose attention they bombed this street to get.”

“Yeah, yeah, your weird subordinate already gave me the fifth degree, can we move this along?  I’m the one they want, right?  So how about I just waltz in there and take care of things?”

The man’s eye twitched, and you just had to pick the guy who was stubborn.  

“Listen, you –”

“Ooooi! Touya!” a voice called, and you turned around to find a wooden sword being hurtled at your face.  You were just barely able to catch it, fumbling it clumsily in your hands and almost dropping it into the dirt, and you looked up to see Gin waving at you from across the street.  “I’ve decided that you can take that after all!  It dispenses soy sauce!”

“Wh –,” you spluttered, staring from the sword in your hands to him and back, “–  _ soy sauce?!” _

“Hey, permhead!” the cigarette guy growled, teeth clenching, and you wanted to bash your head into the pavement.  You were sort of hoping to  _ not  _ piss this guy off any more than was necessary.  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

“Hijikata, how unprofessional, holding up hostage negotiations.”  Okita emerged from behind Gintoki, twirling his bazooka in one hand.  “Maybe I’ll just have to take that vice-captain position from you after all.”

“Sougo, when did you –”

“Hold up a moment!” you interjected, clenching the sword in your hands.  “You decide to give this to me last minute?!  This wooden piece of garbage?!”

“It is your namesake!” Gintoki responded, grinning, and your nails dug into it.  

“My namesake, huh?  Charming,” you said tightly, swinging it up onto one shoulder and turning your back to him.  “Now it would be just great if I could actually get into the building, since everyone seems to be on the same page now.”

You shouldered past Hijikata who was still spluttering angrily at Okita, and made your way to the building, humming a tune to yourself as the dumbfounded Shinsengumi parted before you, unsure of what to do while their commanding officer was otherwise occupied.

“Hey, wait – !”

“Hello there!” you bellowed up at the building, waving your newly acquired wooden sword in greeting.  “Would you like to speak here, or shall I come in?”

The great booming voice laughed in response, and said, “Well, I’d love to see you hold your own with a wooden sword, so I think you better come in.”

“Roger!” you yelled back, saluting and marching up to the building, stamping down the nervousness that was starting to worm its way into the back of your head.  You glanced at the wooden sword resting on your shoulder, and heaved another sigh.  It was a shame that you couldn’t kill them, but beggars can’t be choosers.

You kicked open the glass double doors leading into the building, and they banged into the walls on either side, the sound echoing in the otherwise eerily quiet building.  You strode on through, the commotion of the street behind you gradually fading to nothing as you wound your way deeper and deeper into the building.  At the end of the hall was an elevator, with a young male hostage tied up with duct tape sitting in its threshold, preventing it from closing, eyes wide and shaking as the elevator doors thunked against his back and feet.  

You kneeled down next to him, and his eyes followed you, sweat beading on his brow and rolling down his cheeks.  There was a sticky note taped to his forehead.  The words “top floor” were written on it in messy handwriting, and you groaned.  

“They’re seriously gonna make me go all the way to the top floor?  What drama queens.  Sorry about this,” you directed to the young man, and he visibly jumped.  “Hold on just a minute, I’ll get you out of that.”  You started ripping at the duct tape, the strands falling away easily, and his eyes widened.  “The Shinsengumi are outside.  They’ll take you home.  Or something.”  You ripped the piece of tape off of his mouth and he yelped, biting his lip as you finished removing the last of the duct tape from his arms.  

As soon as he was free, he scrambled from his feet, glancing from you to the door and back, and when you made no move to stop him he was bolting, feet pounding into the ground as he ran from the building.  

Without a thank you, either.  Geez, youth these days.

You walked into the elevator, waiting for the doors to shut before jamming the button for the top floor with the hilt of Gin’s sword.  The elevator started moving with a jolt, and you ignored the way your stomach felt like it was trying to exit your body through your mouth.  You had always hated elevators.

The elevator intercoms usually reserved for painfully bad classical music crackled to life, and a voice drawled, “How nice of you to join us!  We sure hope you brought that money you, you know, stole from us!  Because we have a few, well, I guess you would call them hostages, here with us, and they may just have to start dying if you don’t pay up!  How wild is that?”  

“Haha yeah that’s great  _ fuck you,”  _ you snarled, not even certain if the voice could hear you, but they laughed.  

“Quite spunky today, aren’t we?  Well, I don’t particularly mind, you’re gonna need it, what with facing down all of us with only a wooden sword and all.  Good luck!”

The intercom’s crackling abruptly stopped, and you desperately wanted to smash it to bits with Gin’s sword.  Which you proceeded to do.  Because why the hell not.

As you were stamping the mechanical bits into dust with the heel of your sandal, the elevator doors  _ ding _ ed open and you raised your head to see a whole squadron of your old Manjun buddies lined up, waiting for you.

“How convenient!” you said, grinning.  “Now I don’t have to waste time running around searching for all of you.”

One lunged for you, face obscured by a black mask, and you batted him aside with ease, Gin’s sword practically singing in your hands.  You felt a smile tugging at the corners of your mouth.  Two more rushed you, swords extended, you stepped, parried, struck, and they, too, were on the ground.  

Everything after that was a glorious song of wood cracking against body parts, metal crying out as it was swung through the air, grunts and cries as Manjun after Manjun was flung into the wall, the floor, occasionally the ceiling.  You were full-on grinning now.

It had been so long since you had fought like this.  

After barely any time at all, the hallway was clear, all of its previous occupants groaning in various positions of defeat, and you advanced to the large double doors at the end of the corridor.  You swung Gin’s sword back onto one shoulder, veins singing with the adrenaline of combat, and opened the door to be greeted by a whirring shuriken.  

You stopped it in its tracks with the sword, casting a quick glance to the metal point deeply embedded in the polished wood, and looked further into the room, frowning.

“We’re supposed to get through a few more chapters before my past comes back to bite me in the ass, you know?  It wouldn’t kill you to have some patience.”

“So sorry,” the man leaning against the desk on the other side of the room sighed.  “You know me.  Money always makes me feel . . . impatient.”

“Not to worry, Kuso-suke, the only thing you’ll be feeling in a few moments is a whole lot of pain.”

“It’s Ku _ ro _ suke, you miserable little –”

“Yes, yes, Kuso-shiko, anyways –”

“ _ Kurosuke!” _

“Whatever you say, Baka-shiko –”

“That’s not even close!  It was mildly amusing before but now you’re not even close!”

You slammed the point of Gin’s wooden sword down on the floor with a resounding crack, and Kurosuke fell silent.  Your fingers were wrapped tightly around the hilt, pressing into the grooves of the engraving, your knuckles white.  

“Listen,” you said, voice heavy and low.  “I haven’t been in this city very long.  I still get lost trying to get back to where I sleep at the end of the day.  I still don’t know how most of the fancy toilets work.  But one thing I do know is that there are people I care about very much in this shithole metropolis.”  You looked him square in the eyes, your jaw clenching.  “And if you want to hurt them, you’ll have to put me in the goddamn ground first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i couldn't help myself and added some japanese puns at the end. they're just.....so fun. okay so the guy's name is kurosuke, and touya-chan changed it to kuso-suke (shittysuke basically), then to kuso-shiko (which you will recognize if you watched osomatsu-san, but shiko is basically slang for. well. jerking off) and then finally to baka-shiko and i'm sure you all know what baka means.
> 
> anyways, i don't know if i will be updating this again this week, tomorrow (wednesday) might not have an update at all since i have an AP exam lmao but hello, my old heart and in the rain will definitely be updated at some point, if wednesday doesn't work out for hmoh then the update will move to thursday, with hopefully a chapter of in the rain on friday but past that i really don't know ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> anyways, hope you enjoyed!!!!


	4. There Is More Banter Than Fighting In This One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow. oh, wow. lots of things to say.  
> i got a job!! exciting. not really. my coworkers are a+++, the work itself.....eh. i can live. basically my summer has been going like this, on any given day: i either have work, go to work, come home, eat, and sleep. or i don't have work, i have an anxiety attack about my art school portfolio, desperately try to create a CalArts worthy piece, probably cry, eat, and then sleep. rinse, and repeat.  
> basically what i'm trying to say is that the majority of this chapter was written very recently and i when i was doing it i thought it was awful but it actually turned out pretty good???  
> anyways thank you all for being so patient!! here we go on yet another reader-insert adventure that will probably span a couple years with how slow my updating schedule is

“I’ll have to put you in the ground . . . hm?”  Kurosuke smiled, a slow, deadly thing.  “Well, how great is that, that was my plan all along.”

“Listen you stale piece of rotting curry bread, I don’t give three flying fucks about what kinda anime antagonist bullshit you’re trying to set up.  Smile creepily and monologue all you want but it’s not gonna keep me from kicking your ass.”

“Could you at  _ least  _ let me finish, it isn’t like I’ve waited  _ years  _ or anything –”

“Oh would you  _ please  _ just can it already –”  You lunged for him, wooden sword singing, and a kunai was in his hand, deflecting it with ease.  He danced back a few steps, you danced forward, the sound of metal rapping against wood echoing dully in the spacious office.  You lunged, parried, side-stepped, but he deflected it all, kunai twisting and writhing in his hand like the head of a snake.

“Confused yet?” he taunted, flicking his wrist, and you felt the edge of the kunai draw blood against your cheek as it flew with a  _ thunk  _ into the opposite wall.  “As though I didn’t spar with you every day for almost a year?”

“I thought I told you that it was too early in the story for this backstory crap,” you snapped, and managed to land a stinging blow on his left forearm.  He only laughed, and hopped back a few steps.  “Plus, the ‘crazy old sensei’ trope is grossly overused.  You should know this.”

“It’s too bad you don’t have an  _ actual  _ sword, or else that blow might have actually hurt.”

“I’ll have you know that this sword has taken down many powerful enemies, if my lazy drunk roommate is to be believed.  I’m sure it’s more than capable of whipping your pasty ass into shape.”

“This fight’s going to have to continue a lot longer if you plan on doing any sort of damage with that thing –” 

“Oh, just  _ shut up –” _

You ripped one of the kunai he had embedded in the desk free from the wood and whipped it at him, blade spinning in a near-tear-jerkingly-perfect rotation as it sailed right into his thigh.

“I am sick and  _ tired  _ of all of this dumb plot device, without any sufficient backstory to prop it up –”  Your wooden sword came down with a crash on his forearm again, and this time, you distinctly saw him wince.  “Really, what kinda author is this!  Just throwing together a backstory like it’s nothing, not everything falls together as nicely as that one dumb space story, you know –”

“Who the hell are you talking about?!”

“And you!  It’s not my fault fourth-wall awareness is limited to main characters only!  Shut up and let me rant!  It’s for comedic effect, dammit!   _ Comedic effect!” _

You had backed him up against the floor-to-ceiling windows, blood smearing against the glass as he desperately dipped and swerved away from your sword’s arcs, fingers scrabbling at the cloth pouches at his hips for shuriken, for kunai, for a knife, anything.  Another kunai, launched at your face, and you let this one carve a deep gash into your skin as you took advantage of the opening, turning your sword sideways and slamming the back of it into his neck.  Your hand braced the other end, fingernails curling against the wood, and you brought your face uncomfortably close to his, your smile deadly.

“H-Hold up a moment now, you’re doing this all wrong, I’m supposed to almost beat you and then you get a mysterious power boost from the ‘power of your friends’ or something and  _ then  _ you’re supposed to almost beat me and then  _ I  _ get a power boost and then –”

“Please.  Have you  _ read  _ any of this author’s other stuff.  She doesn’t have the patience for long fight scenes.  You’re going to have to settle for this.  At least I’m not trying to beat you to death with the entire Gintama DVD collection.”

“Oh, come on, you can’t reference arcs you weren’t a part of the timeframe doesn’t work like that –”

“And you know what’s funny, I don’t even have that much of a grudge against you.  I mean, you left me with this huge debt, sure, but so has Gintoki with all his bar tabs and I’ve barely been here a week.  So, really, theoretically, there should be no reason for me to be expending so much time and energy fighting you.  But!”  There, you released your hold, thrusting the rounded point of the sword into his cheek, brutally wrenching his whole body around, and he barely recovered in time to dodge the next sweeping downward strike.  “When you blow up a street, get the cops involved, and then tie up some poor employee to hold open an elevator?  That’s when I actually have to  _ do  _ something.”

You swung your leg up, muscles locked, and launched your foot into his stomach, sending him across the room and into a bookcase, shattering the bottom four shelves.  

The opposite wall, too, oddly enough, although you didn’t remember throwing something even remotely in that direction.

Although, the wave of Shinsengumi officers pouring into the room did serve to clue you in.

“Oh, you have  _ got  _ to be kidding me,” you groaned, rubbing a hand over your face.  “I’m  _ just  _ about to finish him off and you assholes have to come barging in?  That’s so rude, I’m honestly offended –”

“Yep, thanks so much, we’ll be taking him now,” Okita’s level voice sang from the midst of the black-and-gold suited officers, and they all parted so you could see him, hands shoved in his pockets, head cocked slightly to the side.  He inclined his head toward Kurosuke, still slumped against the bookcase, and two officers rushed over, a pair of handcuffs glinting as they hauled him up by the armpits and restrained him.  “Thanks again for doing all the work for us,” Okita continued, almost liltingly, the smug bastard, and you watched his red eyes follow the two officers dragging Kurosuke between them out of the room.  “And since we weren’t the ones who wrecked this place, we don’t have to pay for it.  You really are just a miracle worker, you know?”

“Hold up a minute!” you spluttered, rage bubbling in your chest.  “Wait just a fucking second you third-rate Light cosplayer –”

“Are you just about done here?  Can I have my sword back now?”

A tuft of silver hair had just risen into view, somehow always present for your moments of misery, and you grit your teeth.  You responded, of course, by launching the stick of wood straight into Gintoki’s face.

“Take your stupid stick back, you ingrate, and while you’re at it tell Yagami-san to tone down the S&M act before I embed a Death Note in his skull!  You all are terrible cosplayers and I hope Madhouse sues you for defamation of character!”

“You can’t just be dropping  _ names  _ like that, you idiot, we can’t get in any more trouble here,” Gintoki griped, long strides easily catching up to you as you stormed out of the room.  “You have to at least edit in a convenient beep or shift a pair of vowels around so we’re not  _ explicitly  _ slandering another company –”

“Stop being so smug,  _ you  _ are the primary income for our household and so, ergo,  _ you  _ will be paying for the damages here.”

“Hahaha, that’s so funny, wait where are you going you can’t  _ leave me alone with this –” _

The elevator doors had almost closed on him when he jammed his hands into the rapidly receding space between them, inciting a miraculously clear alarm from the thoroughly smashed intercom, and he stepped into the elevator with a triumphant grin.

“ _ Ha!   _ You can’t run from the runner, I’ve been running from debt collectors for longer than – hey, hey, you’re getting blood on your kimono.  Pattsuan’s gonna complain about having to wash that out.”

You raised your eyebrows, wondering if that was some sort of joke, but you followed the path of his eyes, and brought your hand up to your cheek.  You were only slightly surprised when you felt warm sticky blood under your fingers, and you grimaced.

“Damn.  That’ll probably scar,” you grumbled as you scrubbed at the side of your face with your sleeve, growing increasingly more irritated the pinker the fabric became.  All the blood vessels in your face could go right to hell.

The elevator arrived at the bottom floor with a soft ding, and as the doors were opening Gintoki was striding out, you jogging to catch up with one arm still pressed against the side of your face.  He flung open the front doors, and you squinted as the bright sunlight stung your eyes.

“Gin-san!  Touya-san!”

Shinpachi and Kagura were there, smiles wide, easily pushing past the blockade of police officers to stand in front of you.

“Are the two of you all right?  What happened?”

“Nothing much,” you shrugged, drawing your sleeve away from your face and dabbing the incision with the pads of your fingers.  “Just finishing a fight I started a long time ago.  Few cuts and bruises, nothing serious.”

“That’s good!” Kagura piped up.  “It gets really tiring having to pay the hospital fees when Gin-chan gets impaled during every boss fight –”

“Shouldn’t we be getting home?  I feel like we should be getting home!” Gintoki loudly overrode her, clamping his hands on both of their shoulders, spinning them around, and wheeling them off.  You jogged to keep up, a smile tugging at your lips, and the way the Shinsengumi parted easily to let them pass didn’t escape your notice.

“Wait up, assholes,” you whined, increasing your pace so you were level with the three of them.  “I just defeated an antagonist in my character arc, you know?  Where’s the speech?  The declaration of friendship?  I feel incredibly jipped, here.”

“Yeah, yeah, speech, speech, a few tears, whatever, just disinfect that cut on your face first.  We can’t have two Tsukuyos, it just won’t work like that, we only have so many character types to work with here.”

“I don’t even know who that  _ is –” _

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

“I keep forgetting there’s so much you’ve missed out on,” Shinpachi said with a small laugh as he dabbed antiseptic onto your face with a cotton swab.  

“Yeah, I know, I was just kinda plopped in here after you’ve done all this amazing stuff.  How could you overthrow a government without me, Gintoki?  And not even me, but I don’t think Zura appeared once in that whole arc.  Can you even imagine how offended he must feel?”

“I don’t care about Zura’s feelings,” Gin scoffed from the couch, a copy of Jump open in front of his face.  “We follow the Sazae-san format anyway, the plot basically resets after an arc concludes, it’s like nothing ever happened.  The Shogun is still the Shogun, after conveniently having his resignation rejected, Okita’s sister died, Otohime works in a ramen shop so obscure that we’ll probably never see her again, and whatever happened to Shinpachi’s love interest?  I guess the gorilla author really doesn’t care about you at all, Shinpachi –”

“Hey hey hey!  Stop spoiling the major arcs of the series!  We can’t have people stop reading this halfway through!” Shinpachi snapped, jabbing the cotton a little too hard into your face as he did so.

“Could you not piss off my doctor while I’m being treated?” you sighed, waving away Shinpachi’s reattempt to help with a soft smile.  “It’s alright, I can bandage myself up.  It’s not like it’s gonna take a whole lot of effort.”

“Are you sure, it’s pretty deep, you may need stitches –”

You chuckled, pasting a white bandage over the incision and smoothing it down with your thumb.  “I’ve had much bigger cuts that I never got stitches for.  Ask Gin.”

“No, don’t, Gin-san’s asleep, he fell asleep while you were talking,” Gin responded flatly, laying the magazine over his face and letting his limbs dangle over the side of the couch.  

“I can’t believe you two have had to deal with this for so long,” you laughed, rising to your feet and idly dusting off your legs.  “I would probably have killed him.”

“I’ve come close,” Shinpachi said, eyes dark, and you laughed, ignoring the twinge of pain at the effort.  A bruised rib, for sure, but you didn’t feel the need to share that.

“It’s late, Pattsuan,” Gin spoke up from behind his magazine, nudging it aside with one hand so one eye peered listlessly out at him.  “You should be getting home to sister dearest.”

“Thank you for staying to treat me,” you said, dipping your head, and Shinpachi returned the gesture before rising to his feet as well.  You bade farewell as he made his way out of the room, the front door sliding quietly shut behind him as his footsteps receded into the distance.  Now, with only Kagura snoring softly in the closet across the room, the house had become almost eerily silent.  You groaned, stretching your arms above your head, and sighed as the bones in your shoulders popped.  

“Long day at the office?” Gin asked with faux innocence, rising into a sitting position, carefully dog-earing the magazine and laying it on the table.  “You know what always helps with that – a nice strong drink.”

“Unless you have some stashed away up here then I think I’m gonna pass,” you sighed, collapsing onto the couch with a groan.  “I really don’t feel like moving.”

“Come onnnnn, it’s just downstairs,” he whined, rising to his feet and giving you a pleading look.  “Please?  For me?  For your old pal Gin-san?”

“Why are you acting like  _ you  _ were the one who fought a dude in a highrise office building today?   _ I’m  _ the one who just dealt with the physical manifestation of my tortured past.”

“You obviously haven’t experienced moongazing with a warm cup of saké in your hand.  It’s not something to be experienced alone, in the darkness of your own soul.”

“Alright, edgelord, I’ll get up if you promise to shut your mouth.”  You rose with a poorly concealed flinch as pain flared up in your ribs, but you ignored it and got to your feet, crossing your arms and staring at Gintoki with undisguised malice.  “This moonviewing garbage better be top notch or you will be paying for my hospital bill.”

“Who ever went to the hospital for a bruised rib?” he snorted, leading the way out of the room, and it shouldn’t have surprised you that he picked up on that so quickly.

“Just lead me to the booze already,” you snapped.

The night air felt good against your skin as the front door rattled open, and you took a deep breath, the cool air a blessing as it swirled through your lungs.  “Promise me we won’t go barhopping tonight,” you pleaded as you followed him down the steps, the heavy clunk of his footfalls reverberating through your feet.  “Don’t tell me that the moongazing you had in mind was gazing at some businessman’s pasty white ass as he humiliates himself in front of the whole bar.”

“A man should never promise anything,” was all he said as he slid the door of the downstairs snack shop open, golden light spilling out onto the street and outlining his form as he strode inside, and you sighed.  You should have known better than to try to get a straight answer out of that asshole.

You greeted Otose with a small smile as you slid into a seat next to Gin at the bar, setting your elbows on the table and resting your chin in one hand.  Otose had been a warm, firm presence in the mere week you had spent here, her dry wit and her unyielding demeanor making for a welcome reprieve from the constant tirade of idiocy going on upstairs.

“Evening, you two,” she rasped, taking down a bottle of saké from a shelf behind her and pouring out two cups.  “Off for another night of drunken antics?”

“Not tonight, Otose-san,” you laughed, cradling the cup of saké in your hands and taking a tentative sip.  “Gin’s promised to take me moongazing.”

“Ohoh, have you now?” Otose teased with a wide grin, and Gintoki narrowed his eyes over his cup.  “Finally becoming a respectable man, are we?”

“Shut up, Old Hag,” Gin griped, downing the cup of saké in one fluid motion and slamming it down for a refill.  “I didn’t promise anything.”

“A true man sticks to his word,” Otose responded as she poured him another cupful.  “Moongazing will be better for your soul than barhopping, anyways.”

“‘A true man’ this, ‘a true man’ that, a man’s a man when he says he is, promises or no promises.”

“Could you give us a bottle, Otose-san?” you asked, and you handed her a few bills, which she pocketed with a pointed look in Gintoki’s direction.  “Come on, asshole,” you said, thumping him on the shoulder with your fist and rising slowly to your feet.  “You have a balcony, don’t you?”

“We’re getting up again? But we just sat down!” Gin whined, groaning loudly as you grabbed the hem of his sleeve and tugged him to his feet.  

“Come on, come on, I’m injured and you promised!” you pressed, shooting Otose another smile as you pried the door to her shop open and stepped outside, feeling for all the world like a child hauling their reluctant friend on some half-thought-out adventure.  Gin dug his heels into the groan, letting out a long drawn-out groan, but instead of irritation all you felt was a sort of buoyant glee, usually only experienced after more than a few drinks, but the feeling whilst sober was exhilarating, to say the least.  You laughed, really laughed, as you jogged up the stairs, Gin following begrudgingly behind, grumbling to himself.  He gave you a strange look, red eyes scanning your face, but you ignored the scrutiny and slid his front door open, toeing your shoes off and already headed into the kitchen to search for a glass.

You heard the thump of his boots being tugged off of his feet as you were rummaging through his cupboards, and you had fished two cups out just in time for him to poke his head in and ask what was taking you so goddamn long.  

“What’s got you so goddamn happy?” he asked derisively as you walked towards him, glasses in hand.

“It’s been awhile since I’ve had someone to look at the moon with,” you responded, shoving a cup into his hand and leading the way through the house to the balcony doors, undoing the latch and taking another deep breath as the door slid open.  “Excuse me for actually being glad of your company for once.”

“Earlier today you were throwing my sword in my own face, and now this sudden mood shift?  Listen here, Asuka, I don’t need any of your mental instability to taint this saké paid for with hard-earned money –”

“You  _ deserved  _ the sword-throwing, by the way, but forget that and just drink the saké, idiot.”  You tugged the cork from the bottle’s mouth and snatched Gin’s wrist with your other hand, trying not to dwell on how hot his skin was under your fingers as you poured him a cup.

“You’re not supposed to be this rough when you pour someone a drink,” he complained, but he leaned on the railing all the same, bringing the cup to his lips and taking a long, slow sip.

“You’ve missed me, come on, admit it,” you teased, reaching for the bottle to pour some for yourself, but Gin beat you to it.  His large hand idly batted yours away as he grabbed the neck of the bottle and nodded to the cup resting in your hand.  You raised it, and he met it halfway, the clink of the glass against the cup’s ceramic a soft, pleasant sound.  “Sakata Gintoki, being so kind as to pour me a drink,” you murmured with mock surprise after you took an appreciative sip.  “Should I be purchasing a lottery ticket?”

He only grunted in response, setting the bottle down between you, and you hid your smile in your cup as you brought it to your lips once again, the saké tingling pleasantly in your mouth as you swallowed.  It burned a warm path down your throat and into your chest, and you couldn’t help but hum contentedly as a cool breeze fluttered down between the buildings, ruffling your hair and the edges of your sleeves.  It was a nice night.  The stars were somehow twinkling down through the city smog, blinking in and out of existence as airships passed in front of them.  The moon was round, just shy of being full, and lit your skin with a silver radiance that had you turning your hands over to admire it.  

You chanced a glance over at Gin. and promptly forgot about everything else.  The moonlight . . .  _ did  _ something to him.  His weathered skin was shining with a light you didn’t think it could ever have possessed, the soft silver light dipping and smoothing over the curves and lines of his face like a paintbrush smoothing out a canvas.  When he lifted the cup to his lips again and downed the last of the saké in it, the way the light played across the muscles of his throat and jaw felt like watching some sort of paranormal phenomenon.

And his  _ hair,  _ which had the habit of looking dull and greasy on a good day had somehow morphed into a blue-white mass of fluttering curls as another breeze swept down.  It was like watching whitecaps roll on dark ocean waves, the way the individual strands caught the light and waved back and forth, falling down in front of his eyes and brushing against the top of his ear.

He turned towards you, lifting his cup for a refill, and you had to stifle a choked noise of just how too  _ much  _ it was when he was looking directly at you.

“Got a problem?” he drawled as the saké bottle clinked against his glass, and even that rough statement couldn’t fully ruin the picture of blue-silver iridescence that was going on in front of you.  

“Yeah, with your face,” you responded, rather childishly, you would admit, but he just snorted and shifted his body so he was fully facing you, one arm braced against the railing of the balcony, the other idly swirling the contents of his cup.  

“Well, don’t be going and having  _ feelings  _ over there –,” he sighed, sliding his gaze off to the side.  “I don’t feel like dealing with them.”

“The only feeling I’m having is irritation that your big dumb curly head is blocking my view,” you retorted, and tried to shake the image of the moonlight outlining his face from your head.  Instead, and because nothing could ever go right for you, you were reminded of a conversation you had with Tatsuma, what seemed like a million years ago.  You sloshed some of your saké onto the balcony as you snorted, dropping his gaze and trying to quell your snickering.

“What?  What is it?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.  “I don’t even know why I’m asking, it’s probably something stupid, but I want to know what was worth getting saké all over my balcony.”

You waved a hand in apology, attempting to take a deep breath and straightening up, exhaling shakily as another smile tugged at your lips.  “Sorry, sorry, it’s nothing,” you said breathlessly, downing half of the saké in your cup to distract yourself.  “Just something Tatsuma said to me a while ago.  Don’t worry about it.”

“Ugh, I don’t want to know about anything that idiot said that you could possibly have been reminded of at this point in time.  Just pour me some more liquor so I can forget that you even said anything about it.”

You snickered, but obliged, pouring a generous amount into his cup which he then dutifully reciprocated into yours.  “You’re no fun, you know?  I should find someone better to drink saké and watch the moon with.”

“Ha!  You couldn’t find someone else to hang out with you this long if you tried.  I’m only here out of force of habit.”

You scowled, and gave him an irritated nudge to the shin with the toe of your shoe.  “ _ Rude,” _ you snorted, taking a swig from your cup.  “I’ll have you know that it’s the same here.  It’s not like  _ you  _ have anyone lining up to hang out with you, either, you know.”

“I’ll have you know I have  _ many  _ people who would literally  _ kill  _ to be where you are right now –”

“They’d probably rather kill  _ you  _ –”

“Now  _ that  _ was rude –”

It continued like that for a while, the two of you exchanging insults back and forth, saké totally forgotten amidst the heat of your verbal sparring.  It wasn’t until an especially cold wind blew past, and you found yourself rubbing at the goosebumps on your arms, that you declared you were tired and heading off to bed.

“You can’t just say ‘heading off to bed’ like you have a room of your own, we  _ share,  _ our sleeping schedules are bound like Zangetsu and Ichigo’s inner Hollow –”

“You know, your Jump references are really starting to irritate me.  Can you just shut up and go to sleep so I don’t have to listen to your complaining.”  You were already beginning to remove your kimono and rummaging around in the two drawers he had allowed you to commandeer in his nightstand for something to wear.  “Dammit, aren’t there any clean shirts?” you snapped in the middle of his retort, clutching nothing but an assortment of striped pajama pants in your hands, and he sighed vexedly.

“What am I, your mother?  You expect me to do all your laundry for you?  What an ungrateful little NEET you are, Touya-chan –”

“I’m borrowing one of your shirts,” you proclaimed firmly, tugging one out of a drawer and pulling it over your head as your kimono slipped down over your shoulders.

“Hey, woah, hey,  _ no  _ –,” he protested as you tugged the pajama pants up your legs, stepping out of the fabric of your kimono pooled around you.  “I  _ never  _ said that you were allowed to wear one of my prized shirts –”

“Pipe down, Tommy Bahama, it’s just for one night.  What would you have me do otherwise?  Sleep naked?  Because I don’t think either of us would enjoy that.”

“Still, you can’t just –”

“Goodnight, Gintoki,” you interrupted firmly, settling down into your futon and turning away from him.

“That’s not allowed, only I’m allowed to do that.”

“Goodnight.”

“Stop saying goodnight this conversation is far from over –”

“ _ Goodnight, Gintoki.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> u can check out my tumblr (stealyourpeacock) if you're so inclined, i sometimes talk about things i'm writing if i don't give enough of a shit at the moment, but as i gain a sense of where i want to go with this i'll probably post little updates more.  
> i keep trying to make a twitter where i can be the batshit ball of anxiety i truly am but i keep accidentally telling my friends about it so i'm very self-conscious about posting anything. it's @fenrismech if you're interested???? maybe i'll start posting little blips about what i'm writing and where i am in the process, if you're interested???  
> anyways: gintoki is hard to write!! i wasn't really paying much attention to the deeper intricacies of his character before but now that i have to actually create dialogue for him he's very??? difficult??? it's hard to write a romance story while still trying to characterize him realistically because the man only shows affection in extreme circumstances and having too many of those makes a fic boring, you know? i don't know, i'll work on it, but i like how the dialogue came out in this chapter (for now, at least). lots of references abound, also, and i'm working on putting in more.......lmao


	5. In True Gintama Style

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha back again!! the christmas chapter(s) arriving nearly two months after christmas, isn't that just the most gintama thing you've ever seen
> 
> anyways.......an extra long chapter this time around since i haven't updated in like seven months, about 7600 words. now that my life's finally freed up a bit i should have more time to write stuff! hope you guys enjoy the chapter! i really do love writing this fic

“So, Gintoki, listen . . . I didn’t want to have to do this.”  

He looked up from his breakfast, a few grains of rice clinging to his lips.  His eyes narrowed.

“Do what?” he asked slowly, leaning forward across the coffee table.  

“Well, to put it bluntly, the pay here sucks – read: is nonexistent – and frankly I feel like my talents could be better served elsewhere.”

“What the hell are you –”

“And  _ so, _ ” you continued, steamrolling right over him, “I asked Shinpachi to go meet his sister to ask if I could work at her cabaret club.”  Gintoki was silent, face going expressionless as he picked up his chopsticks and resumed eating.  “I mean, I’ll still work here when you  _ need  _ me, but if I’m gonna have any hope of ever getting out of your hair then I need another job.”

“You know, Kagura said the same thing, and she’s still here,” he pointed out disinterestedly, eyes trained on the bowl in front of him.  “You really can’t trust the young these days, you know.”

“We’re the same age.”

“You really can’t trust the young these days, oh how my old heart is withered –”

“Well anyways, I’ll be hitting up the shopping district later, because if you haven’t noticed, this kimono is more than a little worse for wear.  I can pick up something for dinner if you want.”

Shinpachi chose that moment to stick his head into the room, and cheerily called, “Touya-san!  Are you about ready to leave?”

“I keep telling you people that’s not my name –”

“Oh, Gin-san, perfect timing!  Ane-ue was asking to see you, as well.”

“What the hell should I go over there for?  Your damn sister’s always been a pain in my ass –”

“She said she has some gifts from the cabaret girls who wanted to say thank you after that job we did last month.”

A pause.

“I’ll be ready in five minutes.”

* * *

“I can’t believe you were so easily convinced with just  _ gifts from women _ .”

“Hey, I’ll have you know a gift from a woman could mean  _ many  _ things –”

“And you seriously thought any of those gorgeous girls would give you a second glance?  Ha!  I’m seriously starting to wonder if you were dropped on your head as a child.”

“Please, you two, we’re here,” Shinpachi broke in exasperatedly, pushing open the door of the dojo with a sigh.  “Oh, and Touya-san, just a tip, don’t, uh, eat anything.”

“Wait, what are you talking about –”

“Oh, my, Shin-chan, you’re home so early!  Did that garbage heap you call an employer let you go home because there was no work again?” came a voice from the front porch, and as the figure stepped out of the dojo the sunlight caught her hair and the white of her teeth as she smiled.  Considering the type of people you had met so far your immediate thought was that she was rather average, but that feeling was very quickly replaced by relief at the fact that she didn’t seem to have any mysterious ears or robotic limbs that would try to choke you to death.  She caught sight of you and blinked, her head cocked slightly to the side, and you felt the intense scrutiny of her gaze scan over you.  “Shin-chan, who’s your new friend?”

“Oh, Ane-ue, this is Touya-san, she’s – well –”

“An old friend of mine,” Gin interrupted, and you raised your eyebrows at him.  

“We’re not married, Gin, you don’t have to speak for me.”

“You would never let me speak for you anyway, and besides, you already live in my house –”

“Otae-san!  How lovely to meet you!” you whirled to greet her, bowing vehemently and hoping that she had missed that little tidbit, but by the way her eyes were gleaming you knew that, as usual, the deity presiding over this city hated your goddamn guts.  “I’m, uh, yeah, an old buddy of Gin’s, and I’m just sorta crashing at his place for a bit and anyways, I wanted to ask –”

“A woman like you staying with  _ him?”  _ she asked, nose wrinkling, and you couldn’t tell if she was complimenting you or not, but she was definitely insulting Gintoki.  You liked her already.  “I can’t imagine you’re making much money that way.  You could come work for my cabaret club, if you want, we’re always short on employees –”

For once, capitalism was on your side.

“ _ Yes  _ yes oh my god that would be lovely – your kimono is very pretty you know where did you buy it because well uh I don’t know if you noticed but mine isn’t, well, all that nice –”

“Oh, don’t worry yourself, Touya-san, you’re probably the nicest of Gin’s friends I’ve met so far.”

“Oi, ponytail, I didn’t ask for your opinion on my acquaintances.”

“And I didn’t ask for your disgusting face to show up on my front porch, but it seems we’re at an impasse.”

“Yeah, yeah, nag, nag, where are those gifts you promised me?”

* * *

“You know, I honestly can’t believe how stupid you are.”

“Shut your trap, you two-bit Lucy Liu imposter.”

“What is that even supposed to  _ mean.” _

“Do you two ever stop fighting?  You’re worse than he is with Hijikata,” Shinpachi interjected, rubbing the bridge of his nose, and Gin’s sneer could have curdled milk pudding.

“I take  _ great offense  _ to the mention of that mayo bastard’s name in my presence.”

“I still can’t believe you seriously thought those cabaret girls had any actual gifts for you,” you prodded him again, because who were you to resist pushing his buttons.

“Unfair, I tell you, unfair, I do all that hard work and all I’m left is with inedible dark matter.”

“Ane-go just knows you’re too stupid to resist, Gin-chan.”

You hummed contentedly in Kagura’s direction as the four of you rounded a corner, and you paused as a plethora of shops opened up around you, momentarily overloading your senses.  It had been a while since you had seen so much in one place.

You turned back towards them, to tell them you were heading off, to ask if they needed anything, your lips were preparing to form the words, and the three of them were standing in a line, staring back at you.  Kagura and Shinpachi were just  _ there,  _ at his side, like they belonged there, like there was nowhere else in the world they could be.

You had thought that, too, once.  A long, long time ago.

“Oh, are you heading off, Touya-san?” Shinpachi asked, and the kindness in his voice drove a nail through your chest.  “Maybe I can accompany you, there are a few things I need to pick up –”

“No,” you interjected with a tad more force than necessary, and tried to cover up the slip with a soft smile.  “No, it’s alright, I can just pick it up for you, what do you need?”

Shinpachi started to rattle off the items to you, and you tried not to notice the feeling of Gin’s stare boring into your skull.  

Shinpachi offered you something to write this all down with, but you waved your hand and laughed, already walking away.  You heard the scrape of a boot in the dirt, and wished for a brief, feverish moment that he was following you.

Kagura’s boundless yells receded into the distance, an annoyed drawl filtered back towards you, and you could envision his hand running through his hair if you closed your eyes hard enough.

People bumped into you from both sides, and you realized that you were standing alone in the middle of the street.

You took a deep breath.  Another.

There had to be a kimono shop around here somewhere.

* * *

“Oh, so the lazy freeloader returns?”

“I  _ resent  _ that, and would ask you to look in a goddamn mirror.”  You slid the door shut with the heel of your foot, shifting the garment bag on your shoulder.  “Purchasing goods and services isn’t lazy for capitalism.”

“Don’t talk to me about capitalism.  I bet the kimono’s ugly anyways.”

You sniffed disdainfully, and marched past him, garment bag swishing.  Before you slammed his bedroom’s sliding door, you spat, “For your information, it’s  _ beautiful.” _

His retort was lost amidst the crack of wood on wood, and you huffed, letting the bag slide off your shoulder.  You muttered darkly to yourself as you yanked your sash off of your waist and began to shimmy out of your kimono, “ _ Asshole, bastard, deformed silver ball of lint –” _  The silk fabric rustled under your fingers as you slid the new purchase out of its confines, pushing down the  _ holy shit I spent a lot of money on this  _ feeling that was starting to close up your throat.  It felt almost criminally soft as you slid it over your skin.  

Ten minutes and some expletive-laced finagling later, and you slammed the door of Gin’s bedroom back open again.  “I’m going to work.”

“Hey, woah, what, wait a second –,” he protested as you strode past him, hands balled into fists at your sides, and you narrowly dodged the grab he made for your shoulder.

“ _ What, _ ” you spat, turning to face him fully, and you swore you saw something in his expression twitch.

His eyes quickly gave you a once-over.

“It really does look ugly.”

“So does the  _ black eye I’m about to give you  _ –”

* * *

 

“Okay, so this is the bar –”

“Right.”

“The dressing room –”

“Okay.”

“And we’ve already run you through all the protocol –”

“Otae-san.”

“Yes?”

“I can’t do this.”

“Too bad!”

Small, blunt hands jabbed into the small of your back, and you stumbled out into the lounge area, almost tripping over your sandals and eating polished linoleum in front of all the customers.  Your face burned, the back of your neck felt too exposed, and you resisted the urge to tug the collar of your kimono up around your ears.

This was going to be much harder than you thought.  

“ _ Smile,  _ Touya-chan, you look like you just stabbed a baby,” Otae hissed from behind you, and you stretched your lips into what you hoped somewhat resembled a charming, feminine smile.  “Well, now you look like you just danced on its grave.  Have you  _ ever  _ done anything like this before?”

Your head turned towards her as if on rusty gears, and you forced out through gritted teeth, “I want you to look at my face and answer that question for yourself.”

Otae huffed so hard her bangs did a little jig away from her forehead, and her fingers clamped around your arm so tightly that you hissed through your teeth.  “Touya-chan,” she sang in a voice so sweet that it sent chills racketing down your spine, “I won’t accept less than perfection.  That gas station bathroom of a man you’re living with might be fine with quarter-assing everything at all times, but I got a different impression from you, and I’m never wrong.”

Her grip softened, and she nudged you towards the bar with a curt nod of her head.  

You took a deep breath, clenched and unclenched your fingers.   _ Come on _ , you thought exasperatedly, if you could kill aliens twice your size, you could charm men with brains half that.  Easy.  Simple.  No problem.

* * *

 

As it turned out, you had quite a few problems.  After nearly upending a tray of Dom Peri on a group of customers twice, Otae exiled you to sitting on the far end of the lounge couches, sitting and listening and only speaking when spoken to.  By hour two your face was starting to hurt from smiling so much, and you had nearly drawn blood from how many times you had bitten your tongue.  

Yep, you were definitely wrong, shoving a sword through a tentacle monster’s face is 100 times easier than whatever the hell this is.  You’d actually prefer to be sitting at the table with said tentacle monster, hell, you’d propose to that tentacle monster and have disgusting tentacle monster babies if it would get you out of here as soon as possible.  

“Having fun, Touya-chan?”  Otae sat down next to you with a swish of perfume and blinding white teeth, and boy, you sure did feel like a moldy root vegetable sitting next to her.  

“Thinking that I’ll name my tentacle monster kids Snorplelorpf and Noctoogl, actually, how about you?”

“You know, that’s actually not the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard but it sure does come close!”

“But I’m doing . . . horrible, actually, are you sure I’m cut out for this?  I feel like my soul’s being cut out of my body.”

Otae laughed, and quickly hid the mirth behind a pristine white hand.  “Well, I’ve had a lot of customers asking about you, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Probably asking who invited the serial killer that won’t stop smiling.”

“Touya-chan, you exude such a vibe of mystery, you know?  Men love it.”

“The fist in their face when they try to grope me won’t be a mystery, I’ll tell you that much.”

“Touya-chan . . . if you think any man has ever touched me without my permission then I think you’ve got the wrong impression.”

You snorted, making a male patron across the table look at you strangely, and it took focused effort not to sneer at him.  

“See?  You’re already doing better.  I promise, the money’s worth it.  Worth more than what that silver scumbag is paying you, anyways.”

“Which is, well . . . nothing.”

“See? You need the money for the harsh unforgiving days of Christmas.”

“Oof, wasn’t that a sloppy seasonal transition.  I guess it’s what happens when the author updates once every three lifetimes.”

“The ambiguous time period was suspicious . . .”

“See? You understand me.”

“Is . . . it too late to ask what you’re talking about?”  A customer was staring at the both of you across the table, eyebrows raised, condensation from the forgotten glass in his hand dripping down onto the table.  

“Yep.  Sorry.”

“Apologies, sir, only main characters are allowed to have ironic omnipotence.”  Otae stifled another laugh, and you felt something warm and light bubble up through your rib cage.  

She flashed you a warm smile, full of promise, and for once you had the audacity to hope that maybe things wouldn’t be so bad after all.  

The night passed in a whirl of face powder and the bubbly, faintly stinging smell of Dom Peri, and by the time the last customer stumbled out the bar was a mess of used glasses and alcohol stains waiting to be scrubbed clean.  You could feel blisters forming under the straps of your sandals, and you would definitely have a headache in the morning from all the smiling, but they were good aches.  They were the kind of hard-day’s-work aches that you hadn’t felt in a long time, and a pleasant sleepy buzz was starting to flutter around your temples as you hefted a tray of margarita glasses over your shoulder.

“Ooh, Touya-chan! You’re so strong!  We’ll be done in no time,” Otae chirped happily, clapping her hands together.  Your face burned with the praise, and you sketched a shallow bow in return, which only made her laugh, “No wonder Gin-san likes you so much.”

You stumbled, almost sending the tray rocketing across the room, and you looked at her like she had just grown a second head.

“What makes you think that sentient piece of crumpled tin foil feels any sort of positive emotion at all?  He barely has the emotional capacity to take a shit.”

“So vulgar, Touya-chan, he’s a man like any other.”

“Yep, alright, definitely leaving, bye see you so long au revoir -”

You ignored her protests as you sped toward the exit, slamming the sliding door behind you. You shuddered in the cold, teeth clacking.

“What the hell, have you been fired already? You’re worse than Sunglasses.”

You whirled to see Gintoki, one eyebrow cocked, breath misting out from under the red scarf wrapped around his neck.

“What the hell are you doing here?” you snapped, and you saw him roll his eyes.

“Having some delicious saké under the waning winter moon, not that you would understand, lightweight.”

“First of all, screw you, I hold my liquor like a winner, and second of all, I’m going home.”

You stalked past him, white puffs of air streamlining on either side of you as you went.  Your shoulders shook against the cold, and you became aware of long, heavy strides following you. 

“Idiot.  Why didn’t you bring a coat.”

“Shut up! Stop following me.”

“We’re going to the same place, dumbass, I’m  _ accompanying  _ you.”

“Who asked you to?!”

“The fifth pint of beer that stretched my bladder to its limits.”

“I’m not talking to you anymore.”

“Good! I wasn’t talking to you anyways.”

“Good!  Asshole!”

He didn’t bother to grace that with a response, and proceeded to take long strides until he was level with you.  You had to make an actual effort to keep up with him, and your tug on the end of his scarf almost sent him sprawling into the dirt.

“Easy there, Spice and Wolf!” he choked as you pulled at him to slow down. “I didn’t bring my dog treats with me.”  You looked up at him, eyes narrowing as you scanned his face, and with a sharp sigh his hands were on your shoulders, pushing you backwards.  “If you want me to walk slower just say so, Christ.  And don’t stand so close, you bother me.”

After a few moments of considering whether or not to respond to that, you exhaled loudly.  “Stop making modern pop culture references, you’re too damn old.  And ugly.  I don’t need you to walk me home.”

“Too bad I’m not walking you home, then.”

“You were  _ waiting  _ for me.”

“No, I had  _ paused.   _ For a  _ moment.   _ And you  _ happened  _ to be there.”

“Alright fine, whatever, just don’t show up out of the blue again.  Talking to you gives me a migraine.”

* * *

 

Of course, inevitably, “What are you doing here.  Again.”

“What, I can’t go drinking two nights in a row?  Get off my ass, Mom.”

“That sounds weirdly fetishist and I’m walking away from you now.”

“Well, it’s good I’m headed to the next bar, then, or else I wouldn’t dare be seen with you in public.”

You frowned.  “I’m not going drinking with you, I have  _ work _ tomorrow.”  

“What does it matter, I’m working every single second of my life.  Alcohol only serves to enhance my performance.”

You let silence lapse between you, and considered, thoughts ticking along as you picked at one of your sleeves.  He had been . . . strange lately.  Just as mean and unpleasant, obviously, but the fact that he kept showing up to definitely-not-walk-you-home was like something out of a bad romance novel.  It sent warning flags popping up in your brain like ugly little ingrown hairs, and you wondered if he was dying, or about to run off and leave you with all his debt, or both.

“Don’t you think you should, I don’t know, be home for once? You have two children, Gintoki.”

“I don’t  _ have  _ them, they just won’t leave.  Like a certain other person I know.”

“Well if you want me to leave I’ll go!  God.”

“Well, you can’t now, idiot, I already bought your onsen reservation.  I refuse to waste any more money on you.”

“What.”

“The onsen.  Dumbass.”

“Wh - you can’t just - I’m not going!”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he snapped, somehow managing to make whipping around to face you look lethargic.  “We go every year.”

“Since when? You can’t just be adding plot details to throw me off, it won’t work, your weekly viewers will be  _ ashamed  _ -”

“Oh, please, this is a Sazae-san show we can do whatever we want.”

“You know what,” you sighed, and pressed your forefingers to your temples.  “Fine.  Whatever.  I’ll go steam myself like a crab just so you’ll shut up and leave me alone.”

“Good!  That was the plan all along.”

“Is it too much to ask why we’re going?  Can you manage to give me a straight answer?”

“I’ve decided it’s our new Christmas tradition.”

“Oh.  Great. Wonderful.”

As if to spite you, a cold gust of wind pushed through the street, and your teeth clattered.

* * *

 

“So were you gonna tell me you had a weird ninja stalker, or was I gonna have to figure that one out on my own?”

“I wouldn’t call her a ninja, since apparently she’s so shitty that even  _ you  _ were able to find her.”

“Okay, you know what, I ask an honest-to-god question, and here I am, being viciously attacked, Shinpachi can you  _ believe  _ this injustice -”

“Yes,” he sighed, before the ceiling panel above you nearly crashed right into your skull.

You scurried out of the way, breath escaping you in a tiny puff, and the woman who had just fallen through Gintoki’s damn ceiling was picking herself up like nothing had even happened.  She shook her long purple hair to rid the dust from it, swept it over one shoulder, and shot you a piercing glare, which, admittedly, was undermined by the fact that her glasses were falling off her face.

“You  _ bitch, _ ” she spat.  “How  _ dare  _ you.”

“Come again?”

“How could you take Gin-san from me . . . my sweet Gin-san . . . what kind of satanic rituals have you invoked, you heathen?!”

“Sorry, but I think you’re confused, can you even see with your glasses like that –”

“Gin-san wouldn’t just walk anybody home, so what did you do to him?!  Is this even Gin-san . . . Gin-san, if this is the real you, say something!  Say something so I know you’re not a clone!”

“Touya, shut up, speaking to her only makes it worse.”

“I knew it was you, Gin-san . . . I knew it all along . . .” Her slithering advance towards him was stopped by a resolute smack of his palm to her forehead, and she reeled backwards.  Shinpachi was very much looking like he craved nothing but death.  You were, as always, confused.

“Sa-chan-san, please . . . it really isn’t what you think.”

“Yeah – uh – whatever your name is –”

“Sarutobi Ayame,” Shinpachi, again.

“Sarutobi-san, you gotta believe me, I’m not spending time with this greaseball willingly.”

She turned to face you, squinting skeptically.  “You’re being serious?  You’re not jeopardizing our sweet, sweet romance?”

“God, no, of course not, even the mention of it makes me want to vomit.”

“Oh, great, so my money and onsen offerings mean nothing to you, Touya-chan –” Gintoki whined, lolling his head across the back of the couch.  

“See, this is why you don’t have any friends, you ungrateful silver invertebrate.”

Before Sarutobi could complete the indignant scream rushing to the front of her mouth, Shinpachi clamped a hand over it and said through gritted teeth, “ _ Wow,  _ what a wonderful first meeting, Sa-chan-san, Touya-san, so great for you two to meet each other, but we’re about to be late for – uh – a thing, so, Sa-chan-san, we have to part for now –” And with multiple jabs to her lower spine with the palms of his hands, he had jostled her out the door.

“I’m impressed, Shinpachi,” you sighed, relaxing back in your seat.  “You must do that a lot.”

“More than you know.”

* * *

 

“So we’re seriously doing this?  We’re seriously, seriously doing this?”

“ _ Yes,  _ god, how many times do I have to drill it into your damn skull.”  He shot you a sidelong grimace from your right, aimlessly kicking at the seat in front of him for the hundredth time.

“Jeez, Gintoki, no need to be hostile.”  You put your hands up in surrender, but couldn’t fight the grin tugging at the corners of your mouth.  “The least you could have done is gotten a bigger taxi.”

“Shut up, freeloader, this is all I could afford.”

“Could you two stop fighting for three seconds?  Please?  Kagura’s elbow has been digging into my side for the past three hours and I think the last of my blood circulation is starting to go,” Shinpachi groused from your other side.  He was currently pressed between Kagura and the taxi’s backseat door, glasses askew where his face was mashed against the glass.  “I also can’t feel my face.”

“Quit whining, Pattsuan.  A man needs some struggle in his life.”

“The struggle to breathe is what’s killing me, Gin-san.”

“How much longer?” you interrupted, pinching the bridge of your nose.

“A few more hours.”  Gintoki glanced at his watch, nodding.

“Good.  Then I’m using you as a pillow.”  

“You absolutely will not.”

You knocked your head against his shoulder with as much force as you could muster, and he wheezed.

“Pillow says what, now?”

“I hate you.  I hate you more than anything else in this world.  Cab driver, pull over, we’re throwing her out – hey, asshole, you can’t have fallen asleep that quickly, wake the hell up –”

* * *

 

You woke up three hours later with a faceful of silver hair, and immediately regretted your past-self’s stubborn pettiness.  Oh, if only you would learn.

“My clavicle is bruised, and we’re here,” Gintoki’s voice rumbled through your cheekbone, and then his hand was on the side of your face, shoving you away.  You would have knocked right into Kagura if it weren’t for the fact that she, along with a very obviously bruised Shinpachi, had already vacated the vehicle.  As it was, you were met with a faceful of pungent leather, and if you weren’t regretting everything before, you sure as hell were now.

You made it the rest of the way out of the car, brushing yourself off indignantly.  “I take  _ great  _ offense to you putting your hands on me in such an uncouth manner, you country bumpkin – wait why is there snow everywhere why is it so damn  _ cold  _ –”

“Here, Touya-san.”  You nearly dropped the jacket Shinpachi threw at you, fingers already starting to feel numb.

“This is the onsen, dumbass.  Keep up, would you.”

“You didn’t tell me it was going to be at the bottom of a mountain!  And our taxi just left!  None of us have cell phones!  And there are most definitely no landlines up here!  How were you planning on getting home?!”

He was silent for a good ten seconds.

“Hm.  An interesting question.”

“You have  _ got to be kidding me I am about to kill you.” _

“Touya-nee, come on, I’m starving,” Kagura whined from behind you, small but surprisingly powerful hands ushering you up the mountain slope.  “The longer you and Gin-chan fight the longer my stomach runs on empty and the closer I get to death!”

“One less freeloader for me to deal with –” Gintoki was swiftly cut off by Shinpachi dragging him forward by the neck of his kimono, and his groan echoed off into the distance.

“So, Gin, when exactly were you going to tell me that this fancy Christmas-gift onsen was in the middle of goddamn nowhere?”

“At about, uh, right this moment.”

“Less talking!” Kagura chirped, tugging you harder.  “More walking so we can feed Kagura!”

“Kagura-chan, please,” Shinpachi sighed.  “We’re almost there, and you’re going to kill Touya-san.”

“Who, me? Never.”  The taste of snow in your mouth was starting to get a little old, admittedly.  The path was starting to get narrower and narrower as you all climbed farther up the mountain, and the only thing keeping you from hurling yourself over the edge was the thin tendrils of smoke rising in the distance, hopefully, praise every god in existence hopefully, from a home-y little ryokan.

Of course, Gintoki took so much pleasure in spiting you.  

It was decrepit.  Decidedly haunted.  Crows were circling overhead, the courtyard had snow drifts taller than all four of you combined, and the cracked wooden sign reading “Senboukyou” was hanging by only one hinge.

“Oh, okay,” you said, voice rising in hysterics-induced pitch.  “So it was  _ you  _ trying to kill me this whole time, Gintoki.  I see how it is.  Accept me into your home, lull me into a false sense of security, offer me a cushy onsen trip, all to bring to me to this hellhole that will now be my grave.  Well played!  You even succeeded in tiring me out so much that now I see death as a welcome embrace.  How about we ditch the theatrics and just get this over with now.”

“It has charm!” he protested, stomping ahead of you and gesturing behind him.  “You can’t judge it by its outside looks!  It has feelings deeper than its exterior.”

“That’s great and all, Gin, but I can feel the demonic presence from here.”

“So you’ve returned, Gintoki-san.  And you’ve brought friends.”  The ghostly-sounding voice behind Gintoki quickly morphed into a ghostly-looking face, complete with ghostly-looking body and ghostly-looking spirit crown and ghostly-looking kimono and ghostly-looking translucent skin –

“Oh, would you look at that,” you said.  “A ghost.”

“Nice to meet you,” the ghost said, apparently oblivious to the screaming behind your eyes.  “I’m Rin.  Gintoki-san is an honored guest here, so you are of course welcome as well.”

“Lovely.  Splendid.  Name’s Touya. Supposedly.  According to them.  Hey, now that you mention it, you do know that you’re dead, right.”

Rin chuckled, and gestured for you all to follow her.  “Please come in.  Mother has been eagerly awaiting your return.”

“There’ll be no creepy Stand bullshit this time around, right?” Gin sighed, hoisting his travel bag over one shoulder.  “I don’t know if I have the energy for that again.”

“No, of course not.  She’s promised.”

“So are we all going to pretend this is normal?” you asked Shinpachi and Kagura collectively, and they both just sort of looked at each other and then back at you.

“We’ll explain.”

“Later, Touya-nee, later.  For now, I need food.”

“Oh, yep, food, great,” you wheezed as you dazedly followed them all inside.  “Kagura needs food, Shinpachi and Gin need a warm bath, I need a defibrillator –”

“If you do happen to die, Touya-san,” Rin spoke up, phasing right through Gintoki to hover in front of you, “we’ll make sure your passing is as relaxing and stress-free as possible.”

“You know what, that’s almost comforting.  Thank you.  Although, uh, would it be possible for me to stick around and haunt Gintoki for the rest of his life because that would, actually, make me feel a lot better.”

Rin’s chuckle was drowned out by the sound of a loud, “Gintoki!  Back again, are we?”  The source was a short, not-quite-stout woman, with close cropped purple hair and large lips painted a vibrant red.  The smile lines around her mouth deepened as she greeted everyone, her eyes roaming until she finally landed on your face.  “Gintoki, you have to tell me when you’re bringing a new friend, I didn’t have the chance to spruce the place up.”

“Oh, her?  Don’t worry, she thrives best in garbage.  Like a cockroach.”

“I’m about to stomp you like one,” you growled.

The woman laughed, loud and braying like a horse.  “Seems we’ve all forgotten our manners.  The name’s Oiwa.  Welcome to Senboukyou.  Rin will show you to your rooms.”  Rin bowed, and floated back through Gintoki, waving one of her sleeves.

“This way, please,” she said, although it came out no louder than a whisper.  

“Merry Christmas to me,” you grumbled, and begrudgingly followed her inside.  “This is supposed to be a romantic holiday . . . someone’s supposed to be sweeping me off my feet right about now . . . I shouldn’t have to be stuck here with two kids and a guy I hate . . . unbelievable.”

“Quit your damn grumbling, I should have brought Otae instead,” Gin shot back at you.  “You need to unwind a little, christ.”

“Unfortunately,” Rin went on, as if a villain origin story wasn’t happening right behind her, “we’re still doing renovations from the . . . events previous, so unfortunately we only have three rooms.  Shinpachi-kun, Kagura-chan, your rooms are across from each other at the end of this hall.  Gintoki, Touya-san – “

“Nope.  Uh-uh.  We’re not sharing,” you interrupted her, taking several frantic steps backwards.  “I have to deal with that at home, I’m not doing it here.”

“My apologies, Touya-san,” Rin said with a bow.  “But it would be highly unorthodox to have Shinpachi-kun and Kagura-chan share a room.”

“And it’s not for two unmarried adults?  What era are you from?!”

You hadn’t realized, previously, that you could physically feel annoyance from a ghost.  “Here’s your room.  Onsen’s that way.  Dinner is at 7pm.  Goodnight.”  A strong gust of wind pushed the two of you into the room, and just as quickly slammed the door shut.  The sound echoed in the heavy silence, and you tried to forget the feeling of being touched by ghost-wind.

“There’s only one bed,” said Gintoki.  You looked.  Indeed, there was.  Just about every emotion in your head went into overdrive.

“I’m taking it.”

“No,  _ I’m  _ taking it.”

“No,  _ I  _ am.”

“No, me.”

“No, me!”

The two of you met exactly in the middle, each scrabbling for as much of the futon as you could.  You narrowly evaded Gintoki’s elbow as it came flying on a collision course with your nose, and your answering kick just barely missed his shin.  He growled some obscenity at you, you responded in kind with a gnashing of your teeth, and proceeded to grab more of the blankets in his momentary lapse in concentration.  Eventually you were nose to nose, one leg on the futon, arms full of exactly half of the comforter each, breathing irritated and thoroughly exhausted.

“I guess we’re  _ both  _ taking it,” he conceded sourly, and your eyes narrowed.

“How do I know the minute I get up to go eat dinner you won’t take the rest of it?”  You tightened your grip on the mound of blankets in your arms, and he scowled.  You could see his jaw working, whether in an attempt to deceive you or to convince you to trust him was still to be determined.

“Warriors’ pact?” You scoffed in response, and his scowl deepened.  “On the count of three?”  You mulled over it, and made your expression slightly less hostile.  “One . . . two . . .”  You tensed, not for one second breaking eye contact.  “Three!”  

The two of you leapt away simultaneously, leaving the futon a decrepit mess, and blinked at each other.  “Didn’t think you were gonna do it,” you both said simultaneously.  You grimaced.

“Don’t copy me,” you said irritably.  “If we’re both not back here by 10pm, the bed goes to whoever gets here first.  Loser gets the floor.  Deal?”

“Deal,” he nodded, an unreadable smirk stretching across his mouth.  “Now that I now you’re a trustworthy person, and all.”

“ _ I’ve  _ always been trustworthy, you’re the scumbag here.”

“Yeah, yeah, inferiority complex, let’s just get to dinner.”

“Stop compensating, main character complex.  Shonen Jump doesn’t even  _ want  _ you.”

“Jokes on you!  Nobody does!”

* * *

 

At some point during dinner, after refusing to break eye contact with Gintoki and as a result nearly dropping food on yourself four times, Shinpachi slammed down his chopsticks, and barked, “Are you two gonna keep glaring at each other?!  You’re souring my soup!”

“Maybe if you hadn’t made us share a room,” you sniffed through a mouthful of udon.

“Finally, something you’ve said that I agree with,” Gin responded through a similar mouthful, and you grinned at him.  “Ew, not that, stop that.”

“Are . . . you two going to relax in the onsen afterwards?” Shinpachi asked, carefully trying to divert the conversation.  He already very much looked like he was regretting coming on this little Christmas vacation, and honestly, you didn’t think he should be surprised at that fact.  

“Of course,” you said.  “I haven’t been in an onsen in years.”

“I’ll go if Touya-nee’s going!” Kagura proclaimed, grinning at you, her teeth completely covered in bits of the sukiyaki she was eating.  “Sure hope I don’t get possessed this time!”

“Haha, yeah, definitely gonna pretend you didn’t just say that.”

* * *

 

The shower rooms obviously hadn’t been used in years.  Or however long it had been since Gintoki and the rest had visited here.  The only sound was water dripping from the showerheads and the faint rush of the wind outside the sliding doors, and you relished the few moments of silence before Kagura came in.  

You would have felt strange undressing in front of her, since, you know, you had known her for like two months, if she hadn’t already been catapulting around absolutely naked.  You started to slide your yukata off your shoulders, with Kagura already begging you to help her wash her back, feet tapping on the tile floor as she sat impatiently on a plastic stool.  

“Kid, I’m working on it,” you said, giving your hair a ruffle and tucking your folded-up clothes into a cubbyhole.  “I don’t have your kinda energy anymore.”

“Awww, you always seem so energetic when you fight with Gin-chan!” she pouted, huffing so hard her orange bangs were blown out of her face.  

“That’s different,” you said, taking a seat behind her.  “He makes me so angry that I have no choice but to make energy to compensate.”

Kagura hummed thoughtfully as you fiddled with the tap, arms crossed.  “That’s nice and all, but what’s taking so long?  I want to get in already!”

With a great struggle, you reined in an irritated sigh.  “I can’t figure out the damn tap.  It’s . . . stuck or something.”

Kagura laughed like a bad 90s anime villain, tossing her hair over one shoulder.  “That’s all?  Oh, Touya-han, Touya-han . . . the solution is simple.”  You raised your eyebrows at her.  “We break it!”

There was a beat of silence.

“Kagura . . . you’re a damn genius.”

“I know!”

One banged-up tap and an impromptu (mostly one-sided) soap suds fight later, and the onsen was strangely . . . nice.  Once Kagura had settled down a bit from her rampant doggy-paddling and scuba-diving, and once you actually could let out a breath and relax against the rocks, it was pleasant.  You watched the steam rise up towards the smog-free night sky, the stars so bright you had to actively remind yourself that it wasn’t creepy.  This was what the sky was  _ supposed  _ to look like, when it was untouched by modern human invention.  Alien invention.  Whatever.

“The stars sure are nice, huh?” Kagura sighed, and you turned to see her sitting on the ridge of the onsen, feet kicking absentmindedly in the water.  The steam was so thick you could barely see anything except her brilliant red hair and her large blue eyes, shining out of her face almost like they were stars, too.   _ Cheesy,  _ you thought dryly.  “They don’t get like this in Kabuki-chou.”

“Sure don’t, kid,” you responded with a soft inhale-exhale of the crisp mountain air.  “Gintoki actually did right by you for once.  City air’s not good for you.”

“A lot of things aren’t!” she agreed with a wide smile.  “But that’s okay.  As long as I’m with everyone, and I can beat people up with them, I don’t mind.”

You chuckled.  “I’m sure Gin feels the same way.  Somewhere, deep down in his cold, dead, garbage-infested heart.”

“I was having a good time  _ not  _ hearing your voice,” an irritated drawl carried over the dividing wall, and you actually laughed out loud.  

“Try all you want, Gin, but nothing’s gonna sour my good mood now.”

“Yeah, Gin-chan!  Touya-nee’s heart’s as pure as sukonbu!  Untouchable!  Un-sour-able!”

“You know, kid, that metaphor made absolutely no sense, but I appreciated it nonetheless.”  You ruffled Kagura’s hair, and she made a pleased chuckle.  

You listened amusedly as Gintoki’s grumbling gradually faded to silence, and as the sounds in the onsen gradually returned to the gentle swish of limbs through the water, an indulgent sigh, the wind rustling the trees in the distance.  

“Hey, Touya-nee,” Kagura said quietly, interrupted halfway through with a huge yawn.  “I’m gonna get out . . . tired.”

You bit back a laugh.  “Sure, kid.  I’ll get out with you, walk you to your room.”  She nodded slowly, and you stood up with her, one hand ghosting over her shoulder as she stumbled out of the onsen.  Something warm and bubbly rose up in your chest as you watched her struggle back into her yukata, and as you helped her tie the sash around her waist.  

You pushed it off and away.  It sent too many precautionary signals rising up all along your spine, too many warnings pulsing at the base of your neck.  You had never had a sister, and it wouldn’t do to be getting one now.

“Hey, kid, you want me to carry you or something?  You’re going awfully slow,” you spoke up, trying to ignore the hula-hoops your brain was doing around your current emotions.  

“No,” she said forcefully, shaking her head so hard she almost toppled over.  “A Yato . . . can walk herself.”

“Yep, you keep acting like I know what that means.  Whatever works for you.”

You managed to get her into her room and sprawled out in her futon, still dressed and on top of the blankets, but with a resigned sigh you determined that you were at your caretaking limit for today.  She could take care of herself, she had said as much.  

You made the long trek back to your (and . . . Gintoki’s, you supposed) room, fingers carding through your hair distractedly.  The ryokan was large, and entirely empty, with no other sign of human life except for yourself.  

“Christmas is usually a slow season,” a voice spoke up from your immediate left, and you started so hard you slammed into the wall.  “People want to keep going so they can see their loved ones.”

“You  _ know, _ ” you growled through gritted teeth.  “It was really oh-so-nice to forget that I was staying at an inn run by ghosts for, like, an hour.  You really had to go and shatter my blissful illusion?  I’m just trying to  _ walk,  _ here.”

“Sorry,” Rin said with a dip of her head.  “I . . . forget, sometimes.”

“Jesus H. Christ, now I’m sad.  Great use of empathy, by the way, you really got me.  Anyways, what do you mean by slow season?”

She cocked her head at you.  “This is a ryokan for the dead.  If you couldn’t tell.  By me.  The ghost.”

“Wow, okay, apparently death didn’t rob you of your sarcasm.”

“This is a place for ghosts to pass through on their journey to the next world,” she went on, ignoring you.  “It’s somewhere for them to unwind after the shock of dying.  Although, we get ghosts from all eras looking to pass on, so really it’s just a nice vacation spot for the living and the dead.”

“Great, well, glad I’m not seeing any of them.”

“Oh, there are some here.”  She, again, ignored you, although with the squeak of dismay you emitted you were happy for it.  “But . . .”  She gave you a quick once-over, a small frown turning down the corners of her mouth.  “You have a . . . strong presence.  Gintoki-san and the children, too, although for the most part it’s Gintoki-san.  With the two of you together it can be . . . overwhelming.  The guests are preferring to keep their distance.  However, if they had been more high-profile people, I’m sure you would have heard from them by now.  Nobunaga, Mitsuhide, and Hideyoshi were quite fond of Gintoki-san while he was here.”

“You know, I think I had enough of old dead men in history class, so if you could kindly tell them to keep away from me, that’d be super.  Anyways, I gotta head to bed, it’s almost –”  A clock chimed faintly in the distance, and you felt your face grow pale.  “ – ten.”  

You took off at a running sprint, much to Rin’s confusion, but you were too busy trying to imagine how bad a night spent on tatami mats would be on your back.  “ _ Dammit,  _ Gintoki, I’m getting old, too,” you griped as you rounded a corner, hand clutched to the wall, feet skidding.  God, it would be hell . . . he would never let you live this down.  He’d probably snore with all his might just to spite you.  You’d have to kill him.  A necessary sacrifice.  You could live with a bloodstained comforter.

You slammed the door to your room open, breath heaving, to find a tuft of silver hair already burrowed beneath the comforter, facing away from you.  Your stomach dropped to the floor, and you let out a long, loud groan, slamming the door behind you and stomping around to the other side of the futon.

“I can’t  _ believe  _ this – well, I can, I was late, but – dammit your damn ghost friend held me up and your damn kid needed someone to walk her back to her room and you and your damn rules and your damn stubborn – oh.”  He rolled over to look at you, eyes narrowing over the half of the futon left carefully unoccupied.  Even the blankets had been carefully arranged, he had only half of them in his grip.

“Can you shut up?  I’m trying to sleep here.   _ One  _ of us wasn’t up at an ungodly hour.”

“You absolute goddamn tease,” you said, although it came out almost embarrassingly sing-song-y through the grin on your face.  “You really  _ are  _ nice.”

“Shut up and get in before I change my mind.  I’m already cramping.”

You readily complied, still chuckling, huddling under the blankets and turning your back to him so you were facing the inside wall.

“Niiiiice,” you teased, and he groaned.  

“Say that shit again and you’ll find yourself on the floor by morning.”

You laughed, and pulled the blankets up around your ears, your back bumping up against his.

He was warm.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well..there you go. the next chapter will probably still be around christmas, because i'm a bitch for christmas, and will probably include some of new years, too
> 
> i'm still having so much trouble writing gintoki....and all of them, really? kagura especially is difficult since i can't include her -aru verbal tic and i don't want to make her sound overly childish. shinpachi and touya are the easiest to write.....they're both just tired at all times.
> 
> speaking of touya, how do you guys feel about reader having a concrete name? i'm always afraid it's starting to make things sound like an oc/character and instead of a reader/character but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ using a name is pretty unavoidable when you're dealing with japanese name customs but i still wanna know what you all think! it would be possible to phase out the name if it ends up being unpopular
> 
> see you all for the next chapter!


	6. If You Can't Tell If Someone's Joking Or Not It's Probably Not A Good Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello i am back once again, uploading this on my birthday because i apparently need to be setting chapter deadlines on holidays now
> 
> it's been a rough couple of months!! not gonna lie!! that's very heavily reflected in this chapter so uh yeah

Of course, even the Christmas spirit couldn’t keep you from waking up in the middle of the night, white-knuckled and in a cold sweat.  The last vestiges of your nightmare faded like sunspots from your vision, and by the time your eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the room you had already forgotten what it was about. You wrung the comforter in your hands, and you had popped three seams before you reached the limit of pretending Gintoki wasn’t staring at you.

“Sorry I woke you,” you said, voice far more weak than you wanted it to be, and you stood, comforter sliding off you in a soft hush, almost as if it, too, was begging Gintoki not to say anything.

You heard the rustle of the futon behind you but you had already slammed the sliding door leading to the outside porch, bare feet tingling in the cold.  You perched yourself on the raised edge, toes just brushing the snow-covered ground, and tried to breathe.  The snow stung where it touched exposed skin, and you wondered how long it would take for the taste of ash to fade from your mouth.

A gust of wind made its way through the ryokan, sending you into a violent shiver.  This certainly wasn’t the best way to try to send yourself back to sleep, but it was better than having to sit through whatever awkward kindnesses Gin tried to throw at you.  He was a lot of things, but emotionally capable was not one of them.

The porch door slid open, and you had to resist the urge to yell as you bit out, “I’m fine, go back to sleep.  It happens all the time at –”   _ Home.   _ The word felt like cotton in your mouth. “– in Edo.”  If he noticed the pause in your sentence, there was no sound to indicate it.  “I just need to clear my head for a minute.  Go back to bed.”  You could hear the soft puffs of his breath, the soft scrape of his feet as he shifted his weight on the old wood planks.

Warm, heavy fabric descended over your shoulders, and the hand thumping the back of your head almost sent you careening out into the snow.  “Dumbass,” he said before you could summon the breath to speak, “if you get sick you’re gonna keep me up even  _ more.” _

You turned to him, retort prepared and ready and breath drawn in with a sharp sound, but he grabbed the edges of the comforter and wrapped them so tight all the air gushed out of you.

“I hate you,” you breathed as another violent shiver wracked down your spine.  It was hard to fight the smile tugging at the corner of your mouth as he rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re like a pomeranian with a Napoleon complex.  Could you just come in before I get sick yet again, my immune system can’t handle all this abuse, you know.”

You snorted, giving him a long, searching look before finally rising to your feet.  The planes of his face were sharp in the moonlight, and you raised your eyebrows at him, waiting.  With an unintelligible noise, he turned on his heel and slid the door back open, ushering you inside with a sharp shove between your shoulder blades.

“If you’re so  _ worried _ about me getting you sick,” you said haughtily, drawing the comforter further around yourself, “then I’ll just sleep on the floor.”  You immediately dropped, cross-legged, comforter pooling around your legs.  “And I’m keeping the blanket.”

“Like hell you are,” he snapped, scrambling over and grabbing the edge of the futon, sliding it across the tatami mats toward you.  “This room is cold.”

“What am I, your personal heater?”

“Yes.”

“Now I’m  _ really  _ not coming back.”  In response, he tugged the edge of the comforter still wrapped around you so hard that you landed on the futon, face-first.  You turned your head to look at him, and blew the hair out of your eyes to really sharpen the glare.  You were aiming for perfection, here.  (If he dropped dead on the spot, you wouldn’t have to share.)  “If I wake up again, screaming bloody murder, you’ll be sorry.”

“Shut up, you won’t, now just go to sleep, will you?”  He tugged more of the comforter away from you, and you fumbled, punching the first available bit of skin you could reach.  It was the not-particularly-painful area of his upper arm, but your point still stood.

“You’re  _ terrible  _ at this comforting thing.  Aren’t you supposed to be running your fingers through my hair?  Delicately stroking my face?  Gently kissing my forehead –”

Gintoki made an indignant choked noise, and tugged on your hair so hard you yelped.  “Is that helping?” he asked, sadistic irritation coloring his tone.  “Are you feeling sufficiently relaxed?”

“You’ve been spending too much time around that damn Shinsengumi kid,” you growled, wrenching his hand from your hair and sticking your tongue out at him in defiance.  He shoved your face away with the palm of his hand, and you tried in vain to bite one of his fingers.

“God, are you kidding me?!” he snapped, drawing his hand back.  “What are you, feral?!”  You grinned, and stuck your tongue out at him again.  “Stop  _ doing  _ that.”

You laughed, and resisted the urge to shove his face in a similar manner.  “If you want to wrestle after all these years, then I’m more than up for the challenge,” you teased.  Memories of the two of you launching yourselves at each other over dinner, much to the enjoyment of the fellow soldiers and simultaneous chagrin of the commanders, played through your head like a film reel.  You had always struck first, and he had always answered back in kind.  “Remember the first time I pinned you?  The look on your face was so priceless, but then Zura just had to call over the rest of them and –” 

The sudden tightness of his mouth closed yours with a sharp clack.  You grimaced.

“Sorry,” you sighed, turning away.  “We were having a nice moment and everything.”  You shifted awkwardly for a few seconds.  “Here.”  You passed the comforter over to him, and only pressed harder at his initial resistance.  “I’ll be fine, just take it, you dick.”  

You flopped down next to him, as close to the edge of the futon as you could get, knees curled up and pressed against your chest.  You folded your arms around yourself and willed your body not to shiver.  

The rustling of the comforter, the slight scratch of the futon over the tatami mats, the soft  fwump as he curled up next to you, a careful four inches away, felt like sharp pebbles being pelted at you by a particularly persistent child.

His sigh was the heaviest thing in the world.

* * *

You dreamed, again, but it was different.  Soft fingers carding through your hair, the acidic taste of summer fruit on your tongue, sticky on your fingertips.  Your head was laying in someone’s lap, soft kimono silk brushing against your cheeks and the back of your neck, and you looked up, smiling, as someone leaned over you.  Her chuckle reverberated down through your chest, a pleasant warmth, as a callused thumb brushed a speck of food from your cheek.  She seemed so large, world-encompassing, her fingers brushing hair out of your face, her lap a delicate pool of shade.  The afternoon sun made a halo around her head, and she smiled and asked you what you were looking at.

Your feet kicked happily in the grass, and you were so  _ small. _

The dream shifted, warped, like you had been pulled out of yourself and forced to sit and watch, as if it were some sort of film.  A child’s uncoordinated feet and hands were replaced with an archer’s gloves, a warrior’s bracers, the baby fat on your face melting away into something sharp, adult.  Adult-ish.  The roundness of your eyes fell, sharpened, sunk back into a face that hadn’t known a soft touch for a long, long time.

You were perched in a tree, a dozen persimmons in your arms.  Sakamoto was next to you (Sakamoto, Sakamoto, it sounded so formal and strange), grin wide, annoying laugh ringing out as he pelted a fruit down towards Zura’s head.  The indignant squawk that followed was almost enough to send you tumbling laughing from your spot.  Takasugi was the next target, a well-aimed persimmon from Sakamoto thwacking against the back of his head before you even had the chance to aim.  You stuck your tongue out at him (it felt familiar in a way it shouldn’t), and he responded likewise, before it was broken up by the smile threatening to grow all the way to his earlobes.

“What are you, a monkey?” an irritated drawl sounded from below, and you shifted to see Sakata (wrong wrong wrong all wrong) standing at the base of the tree, hand resting against the bark, eyebrows drawn low as he glowered up at you.  “You’re embarrassing us.”

You cocked your head at him, considering.  You were fairly certain this was the first time he had ever spoken to you.  The first time you had even heard him speak, period, aside from hushed conversations with Zura, heads bent low by the campfire.  Aside from all the times the two of you had sparred, or ended up next to each other when dinner rolled around, you really didn’t know him that well at all.

“Who cares?” you asked, making a big show of shadowing your eyes with your hand and peering off into the distance.  “It’s just us for miles.”

His scowl deepened even further at that, and you saw Zura shoot him a mildly confused look from where he was still recovering from the persimmon attack.  “You’re just – you’re just an idiot, that’s what I’ve decided,” he concluded haughtily, crossing his arms.  

“Now who’s the monkey?” you taunted, shifting your position to get a better look at him.  “You’re just like a kid who can’t win an argument.”

He huffed loudly, and Sakamoto leaned over to mumble conspiratorially, “He’s just being a jerk because you’re  _ new.” _  You gave him a questioning look, ignoring Sakata’s irritated protest that your attention had wandered away.  “It’s just been us for a bit, you know?  He’s always prickly at first.”

“What are you, a durian?” you called downwards, thoroughly ignoring Sakamoto’s sigh.  “We’re all friends, aren’t we?  Your little boy-warrior club is kinda annoying but since I kinda have to live with you at the present moment, I suppose there isn’t much I can do.”  You nonchalantly picked a persimmon from the cluster in your arms, turning it in your fingers.  “I should at  _ least  _ be able to call all of you by your first names.”

Sakata bristled like a porcupine, and you swore you could see spikes sprouting from his shoulders.  “I don’t mind,” Takasugi’s baritone chimed in from where he was still seated, tossing the persimmon in his palm before chucking it straight back into Sakamoto’s forehead.   _ Tatsuma’s  _ forehead.   _ Shinsuke’s  _ precise throw, which had quite effectively quitted Tatsuma from his perch.

“Only mild complaints from me,” Zura piped up, and you rolled your eyes.

“That’s because no one ever called you by your real name in the first place,” you said, lobbing a gentle persimmon his way.  “How about it, silver-head?” you directed at Sakata.  “Do I have the prodigy’s permission to be so terribly informal?”

He considered for a minute, jaw working as he chewed on the inside of his cheek, before he finally rolled his eyes, a rueful smirk making its way across his face.  “I should call the PTA on you all for harassing me.  I feel  _ abused.” _

You blinked.  His eyes gleamed as his looked back up at you, awaiting your response.

“So you  _ are  _ a nice person.  I knew it all along,  _ Gintoki.” _  You sang the last word, persimmons threatening to spill onto the ground as you swayed happily.  The grin on your face was practically blinding.

He crossed his arms again, but the smirk remained.  “I get to call you by your first name too, you know.”  You scoffed.

The sun suddenly broke out from behind a stubborn cloud, your name rolled off of Gintoki’s tongue, and the sunlight was almost enough to turn his eyes to gold.

For just a second, the whole world stopped spinning.

* * *

You woke to an eyeful of silver hair, and nearly sent yourself hurtling away in alarm.  The persimmon tree was gone, the lonely country road was gone, Shinsuke, Zura, Tatsuma – Gintoki.  All of them, gone as if they had never even been.  Even the Gintoki in front of you would never be the same – the lines around his eyes attested to at least that much.  You closed your eyes, and tried to get your heartbeat under control.

The memory of citrus on your tongue was already starting to fade as you rolled yourself over, surveying the room around you.  You sighed, and pressed the heels of your palms into your eyes.

Of course it had been a dream, but you couldn’t escape the feeling that you were forgetting something incredibly important.

An arm threw itself over you, a nose nudged itself into your shoulder with an irritated grumble, and all higher thought processes immediately ceased.

You stared, incredulous, at Gin’s sleeping face, watched the flutter of his eyelashes, the rise and fall of his chest.  You did the only thing you could think of, which was, of course, to poke him in the forehead as hard as you could.

He woke up immediately, eyes blown wide as he scrambled away from you as fast as he could, flailing arm nearly hitting you in the face on the way.  Successfully driven onto the tatami mats, hair askew, his eyes narrowed as his thoughts started to piece themselves together.

“I should sue you for sexual harassment,” he said, voice groggy with sleep as he hauled himself into a sitting position.  “Making me think I’ve been attacked by a damn ghost what kind of  _ nerve –” _

You couldn’t help your sputtering laugh.  “You sound like a Victorian lady whose skirts just got ruffled.  Have I offended your delicate sensibilities?  Caused irreparable damage to the marble plate of your decidedly-not-charming, old-man forehead?” The matter of his treating you like a body pillow, naturally, went unspoken.

“I was dreaming!” he snapped, which sent your blood pressure spiking.  “This is your fault for waking me up at god-knows-what hour of the night, I get weird-ass dreams.”

“You’re just old,” you sniffed.  “The elderly often experience strange dreams.”

“I’m  _ not  _ old.”

“If you can get up off that floor without at least one joint cracking then I’ll walk Sadaharu for a month.”

* * *

“Pass the rice, Pattsuan.  No, not that rice,  _ that  _ one.  No, no, the one with the – yeah that one, here, bring it here.”

“But, Gin-san, I already have the –”

“Just put it in the empty space, Pachi, we’re the only living people here.”

You watched the shuffle of dishes through Shinpachi’s hands with raised eyebrows, shooting a sympathetic glance to Kagura as the excess plates were crammed in around her breakfast.  Gintoki looked more akin to a drill sergeant than an onsen guest, shoveling food onto his plate and rotating the dish back towards Shinpachi with the efficiency of factory machinery.  With how things were going, you didn’t even have any food of your own.

“Gin-chan,” Kagura whined through a mouthful of rice.  “It’s too early for military exercises.  I don’t wanna march.”

“Gintoki’s just being crazy,” you interjected, shooting him a withering look as you snatched a bowl from the ever-increasing crowd of dishes encroaching on Kagura’s meal.  “Old people get that way.”

“How dare you – pass that back, Shinpachi, she doesn’t like those – I take great offense.”

“Good – he’s right, Shinpachi, sorry – offending you has been the highlight of my life for years.”

“You know, I really didn’t need another sadist in my life – Pachi, pass the persimmons would you –”

Shinpachi’s retort was lost in the memory of wide country roads, dimpled peels giving way under your fingernails, the scratch of parchment crumpled tightly in the palm of your hand.

You barely caught the persimmon Gintoki tossed at you, and tried not to let your expression get weird.  “You have no right to know me so well, you know.”  His raised eyebrow informed you that you had not succeeded.

Kagura either didn’t notice the shift in mood, or didn’t care, as she chose that moment to half-clamber up onto the table to reach for the bowl of citrus.  “Wow, Gin-chan, this place sure is fancy!  Persimmons and everything!  Even after all the egg on rice I’ve been served . . .”

“Kagura,” you sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose, “one of these days I’m gonna show you what it’s like to eat like a real human – or, human-esque.  You know what I mean.”

Shinpachi was glancing between you and Gintoki curiously, nervously pushing up his glasses with his finger, and with a soft huff you peeled the persimmon Gin had tossed at you with hands steadier than you felt.

“Are you two alright?  You seem tired,” Shinpachi asked, and Kagura momentarily paused in her eating to study the two of you thoughtfully.

“Fine,” you said airily, at the exact same moment Gintoki griped, “If you define alright as being woken up by her weird-ass dreams.”

“They’re not  _ weird, _ ” you retorted.  “Old memories, and such.”

It was like his face had been set in stone, with only his dumb mouth left free.  “Your trauma’s getting on my nerves.”  You bristled, anger burning up through your chest.  The sarcastic sting was still there, but this wasn’t a joke anymore.  You clenched your jaw tight, stomped your anger down, down deep in your chest.  Not now.

“You would know,” you said quietly, and there were a few seconds of silence before you heard the chair he was sitting in slide against the floorboards.

The sound of his footsteps leaving the room, and his quiet, irritated grumble that he was going to take a bath were lost in the pounding of blood in your ears.  

“Touya-san . . .,” Shinpachi said quietly, and your grip tightened so much you almost mashed the rest of the persimmon to a pulp.  

“That’s not my name,” you bit out, before taking a deep breath.  Letting it out slowly.  “And before you ask, I don’t know.”  A vague answer, one he definitely wasn’t satisfied with.  “We’ll figure it out.”   _ Not that we always have. _

As you also excused yourself, bare feet padding softly back towards your room for a well-deserved nap, an angry, dark, bitter feeling worked its way up your gut and into your throat.  You crossed your arms around yourself and hurried your pace, ignoring the persistent feeling that you were being watched.  You didn’t really want to talk to Rin right now.

The room offered no further solace, however, as sleep continued to elude you as the morning passed closer to noontime.  The minutes slid by like water, and you with them, slipping in and out of consciousness in an almost-but-not-quite half sleep that made the time go by faster but didn’t leave you feeling any more rested.

Gintoki’s face kept flashing in front of your eyelids, and you grimaced, flopping over to bury your face into the futon.

_ Nothing I do could ever compare to when you left.  And yes, I do get to bring that up forever. _

You could already see the metaphorical walls he would throw up around himself, the careful way his eyebrows would level out, his eyes losing all semblance of light and depth, all in his annoyingly skillful art of giving no indication as to what he was feeling.

You realized you had become used to that expression, and you wondered when you had managed to royally fuck things up so bad.

* * *

Rin popped her head through the wall a little after noon, and you screamed so loud you heard birds fly away outside the screen door.  You scurried to the opposite wall, comforter clutched to your chest like a shield, and she gave you a flat look before phasing the rest of the way into the room.

“Don’t  _ do  _ that,” you snapped, and you could distinctly tell she was trying very hard not to roll her eyes.  “I’m still not used to this whole –,” you waved your hand vaguely, “– ghost thing.”

“I didn’t come here to further discuss how dead I am,” she said, and you were impressed at how she could stick so much sarcasm into a sentence so formal-sounding.  “I came here because you and your –”  She paused, looking for the right words.  “. . . man-friend are both sulking and your dark auras are bothering the guests.”

“It’s not  _ my  _ fault,” you sniffed, turning away from her to study the pattern on the wall with great interest.

“It’s at least half your fault,” she countered, and you felt something coil up and writhe deep in your stomach.  “Arguments go both ways.”

“I sure hope I become  _ this  _ wise after I’m dead,” you grumbled, but at her sharp sigh you rolled your eyes and barrelled on, “well  _ his  _ half is that the moment I bring up anything even remotely related to before he had his two damn kids and moved to goddamn Edo he clams up worse than an otaku when his parents ask about his browser history –”

“And yours is that you seem to be hell-bent on dredging up things that have long passed, things that no longer have any significance or relevance in the present day.  Surely you must know he went rogue for a reason.  You don’t even know what happened.”

“You don’t either!” Your voice was bordering on a shout, and you reined it in with great difficulty, hands curling into fists.  

“No,” Rin agreed, “but I’m observant enough to know that you’re missing a big part of the picture.  A part that he’s not going to be willing to reveal to you.  For . . . reasons that I think he should tell you himself.”

“What the hell are you –,” you began, but she was already gone, with only a faint, musty smell as any indication that she had been there at all.  

You lapsed deep into thought, and somewhere reflected that this really was one of the worst Christmases ever.

In truth, during the war, the five of you hadn’t been together all that long.  You had enlisted on a whim, been placed in the same squad as Gintoki and his friends on a whim, and had ended up traveling with them, all on a whim.  Half a year, maybe less.  After the battle that only Gintoki, Katsura, and Takasugi (whose first name had never quite stuck) had come back from, Takasugi missing an eye, Katsura with a look on his face you had never seen, and Gintoki – 

Sakamoto had been injured, you remembered that.  A spear to the shoulder, just deep enough for him to be taken off the front lines.  The strange, empty look in Gintoki’s eyes as he, Takasugi, and Katsura led the remainder of the squad towards an Amanto camp a mile south.  Katsura’s quiet affirmation that it was there they kept all the prisoners.  Takasugi looking at you as if you weren’t supposed to have heard that.  

You had wanted to go so badly.  Gintoki, back to you, grip firm on his katana, told you to stay.  That the injured needed you.

That, of course, would be the last time you ever listened to anything he said.  

You had never felt a fear so potent as the one that coursed through your veins like poison as two lone figures crested the ridge, hours and hours later.  The moonlight breaking through the dark grey clouds only illuminated a head of brown hair, a head of black, and the tell-tale glimmer of blood. Your sharp intake of breath had alerted Sakamoto, and the color rushed from his face so suddenly that you thought he might faint. 

Takasugi would not speak.  He accepted the bandages begrudgingly, and as soon as he was given the tentative all-clear, he strode out of camp.  Nobody was stupid enough to follow him.  (You would never see him again).

_ Katsura, what happened?  Takasugi . . . his eye . . . and Gintoki, he didn’t – he couldn’t have –  _

Katsura’s sigh was like the tip of a knife, pressed against the column of your throat.  The three of them were the only ones who had survived, he said.  Gintoki – and there his throat closed up, his eyes screwing shut, and you could tell he was shaking under all his armor.

_ Something terrible happened. _

It took you another hour to fully ascertain that Gintoki was gone.   _ Not dead,  _ Katsura assured you with characteristic intensity, but to you, he might as well have been.  Sakamoto grimaced next to you, hand twisting in the bandages of his near-useless injured arm, and didn’t say a word.

Morning came, and he was gone.  Left a note spouting some garbage about tracking down Gintoki, and then finally jettisoning off into space like he had always wanted.  You had gotten a mile and a half from the camp before Katsura caught up to you, and told you Takasugi was gone, too.

That was when things really began to fall apart.

The shogunate surrendered, the Amanto took over, yada yada, politics; you had never been in the war for such things.  The troop bled off, over the following weeks, grim faces talking about families, wives, people they had to go back to.  

Takasugi would be alright, Katsura said.  Would probably meet up with those radicals the troop had met in a hamlet a month and a half ago.  (Katsura had always known him best.  Known  _ everybody  _ best, no matter how clueless he seemed).  Takasugi wouldn’t just disappear.

_ You’ll hear about him.  I’m sure of it. _  You didn’t like to remember the expression on his face when he had said that.

Sakamoto, too, would be just fine.  He had always been likeable in a stupid, endearing way, but dependable where it counted.  You remembered the way the stars had reflected in his eyes when you all would be spread out by the campfire, staring up at the ships passing overhead, quiet voices nearly inaudible over the crackling of the flames.

It was not long before Katsura left, and you almost wished he hadn’t said goodbye.  He spoke at length about injustice, the government, the Amanto elite with the shogun as their puppet.  In truth, you hadn’t really been listening.  He had left with promises of an underground resistance, situated in the very heart of Edo.  You had watched him go and tried to pretend that the sky wasn’t crumbling around your ears.

Takasugi had his radical movement.  Sakamoto had space, had the planets, had his stars.  Katsura had his underground resistance, the upbringing of a wealthy family to straighten his spine, the idiocy of somebody who never really grew up but liked to pretend they had.

And you?

You had been left all alone.

You weren’t sure when you had started to refer to them all by their last names, or when you stood up, slightly dizzy, in the hopes that a bath would clear your head, or when the door slid open just as you were walking out of it.

Your face met Gintoki’s bare chest and you stumbled back in alarm, hand gripping your throbbing nose as your mind tried to piece together what had just happened.  Okay, alright, so he was standing there.  In the doorway.  Right, yes, you got that, you had the face pain to prove it.  Second observation, he was naked from the waist up, and that’s just about where all observation stopped.

“ _ You,”  _ he said, still painfully monotone despite the irritation in his tone, and a few droplets of water from his hair fell down to the floor.  “You sent the ghost girl after me.  You  _ know  _ she scares me shitless –”

“I – wh – I did  _ not!  You  _ sent the ghost girl after  _ me!” _

Ah, yes, an argument.  Solid ground.

“Listen, Tomoe Gozen wannabe, if you wanna talk about feelings go cry to Shinpachi, I don’t have time to waste on trying not to rupture my sphincter muscles from how hard she scared the shit out of me.”

“Alright, you know what,  _ gross,  _ first of all, secondly, I have always been just as afraid of ghosts as you have! _ ”   _ You jabbed a finger into his chest, which bounced back with a surprising amount of resistance.  You tried not to think about it.  “And I don’t  _ want  _ to talk about feelings.”

“Well, you know, it’s Christmas, so we might as well get everything out in the open!” he said as he strode past you into the room, loose pajama pants billowing as he seated himself on the futon.  

“I can’t talk to you until you put a shirt on,” you griped, crossing your arms. “You’re also dripping on the bed.  I have to  _ sleep  _ there.”

“Oh, splendid emotional aptitude, here I am trying to have a conversation –”

“We’re not having it!  We’re not!”  And all of a sudden it was like a dam was breaking somewhere in your chest, all the pent-up anxiety and anger and fear, instigated by last night’s dream but really it had started a long, long time ago.  “Not when your two damn kids can probably hear us yelling all the way across the hotel like the old married couple everyone seems to think we are and not when I’m trying to get into the damn Christmas spirit and not when I can’t even really tell if you’re actually angry at me or if this is more of our weird bantering thing!  I don’t get it!!  Do you?!  Does anyone?!  Will me bringing up anything that happened more than a month ago cause you to storm out on breakfast again tomorrow or was that just a one-time thing?”  You paused for breath, chest heaving, and he was staring at you with an unreadable expression on his face.  Perfect.  “If you don’t wanna talk about whatever the hell happened all those years ago,  _ fine,  _ we can pretend it never existed, we can pretend you never disappeared, we can pretend  _ everyone  _ never disappeared when  _ they  _ all had places to go and people to see and goals to achieve and  _ I  _ –”

The next breath you took rattled and caught, like a hook quivering on a string, somewhere in the lump rising in your throat.  You turned from him in one rigid, swift motion.  

“Hope that was enough of a conversation for you.”  Your voice was quiet, your fingernails digging into your sleeve.  “We don’t have to talk.  We don’t have to talk about  _ anything  _ anymore.”

You knew you were fleeing the conversation as you walked out of the room, door sliding shut with a definitive click behind you.  You knew it went against every instinct you had, every urge to work things out, to rip the tangled knots from the thread of whatever twisted friendship the two of you had and straighten it all out again.

But you had always been a coward.

The onsen did little to soothe your frayed nerves, and at one point you had to talk yourself out of staying there until you dehydrated and died.  The only thing that stopped you was the thought of the kids having to see your naked corpse being dragged out to the morgue.

You scrubbed your face with your hands, and tried to collect yourself.  It wasn’t a big deal.  The two of you had gotten into fights before.  Granted, past fights hadn’t involved years of bottled up tension and anxiety brought about by shortcomings on both your parts, but still . . . 

You groaned loudly.  Even you couldn’t convince yourself that this was something you knew how to handle in the slightest.  You wondered if his detached expression had been a careful front, or if he really didn’t have enough energy to bother with you anymore.  It could be both, for all you knew.

He really had never told you anything.  Maybe he had never told anyone.  You couldn’t imagine it.  Stuffing everything inside of yourself so tightly, so devoid of leaks or cracks that you’d appear lazy, unaffected.  Normal.

The mornings, back in Kabuki-cho, when you had woken up to find him already sitting by the window, strawberry milk carton in hand, came back to you with astonishing clarity.  As he would turn to acknowledge you, you could always see the lines around his eyes that you just thought had been drawn there by the passing years.  Sometimes he would toast you mockingly, milk sloshing in the cardboard, and the early morning light filtering through the window would be so soft you just pretended the events of the night previous no longer mattered.

You knew better.  They  _ always  _ mattered.

A fresh wave of self-hatred was interrupted by the door of the washroom sliding open, and Kagura stomping out, head held high, face lined in tight, angry misery.

“Hey, squirt,” you said, but as she didn’t respond, plopping into the onsen like a rock, your heart lurched.  “Kagura.”  Her lip quivered, but the rest of her expression pulled through.  “What’s the matter, kid?”

Her sniffle echoed in the steam-filled space, and you very suddenly remembered how terrible you were with dealing with stuff like this.

“Gin-chan –,” she started, staring up at you with her almost criminally large eyes, her voice loud and determined but still quivering underneath, “he’s not leaving, is he?”

You blinked at her, words dying in your throat.  “I –,” you started, stopped, took a breath, “I – uh – Kagura –”

She crossed her arms and hmmphed, and even from so far across the onsen you could tell she was trying very hard to force her way through this.  “I don’t want him to leave,” she said, almost as if it was a command.  

You shifted closer to her, hands scraping against the stones, and awkwardly patted her arm.  You couldn’t even tell her that he wouldn’t.  You couldn’t even tell her that he wouldn’t just pack up and leave without saying goodbye, without giving any indication of where he was going.

“He won’t leave  _ you, _ ” you said, and you were grateful she didn’t seem to notice the emphasis.  “And if he does I’ll – I’ll kill him.  How’s that sound?  I’ll hunt him down and punch him so hard he can’t see straight for the rest of his life.  Deal?”

A laugh made its way out of her, and she deflated a little.  God, for all you had seen her beat up creatures four times her size, she really was just a kid.  Afraid of being left behind.  “Is that why you found him?” she asked, and you had definitely not been prepared for that question.  “To kill him because he left you?”

“Well – I – no,” you admitted, rubbing the back of your neck.  “But I thought about it.”  She laughed again, and that was about as much emotional labor as you had experience in expending.  “Alright, kid, let’s get you back inside, huh?  It’s way too early for you to be taking a bath, you won’t be able to stay awake for dinner.”

“But  _ you’re  _ taking a bath,” she protested as you ushered her back to the washroom.

“Yes, yes, but I’m old, my body’s already sinking towards death so it doesn’t really matter what I do to it anymore.”

“. . . Alright.”

“Just . . .”  You were already helping her to get dried off, fiddling with the towel in your hands as you shoved a yukata towards her.  “Don’t worry about Gin.  He’s got a lot of people to straighten him out.”

“Why do you call him that?” she asked as you started combing out your hair.

“Call him what?” you asked.

“You call Gin-chan Gin.  Why?”  

Damn this kid and her stubbornness.  “Well you call him Gin-chan.  I just dropped the honorific.  That’s all.”

“Your voice gets all soft,” she said shrewdly, leaning in to inspect you like you were a stag beetle on a tree, and you drew in a sharp breath.  “Like in those dumb TV dramas that are always on when Gin falls asleep in the living room.  It’s  _ weird.”   _ The comb fell out of your hands, and you tried pathetically to pass it off as tightening the tie on your robe.

“Hahahahaha I guess adults are just weird!!” You rose in a rush, hands pushing into the small of Kagura’s back as you ushered her out of the room.  “Guess you should get to your room!  Wouldn’t want you to be tired for dinner and then the ride home tomorrow this is supposed to be a vacation okay see ya bye!”

You rushed off in the opposite direction, every inch of your body feeling like it was on fire, and wondered why every damn bath you took in this place had to be a psychoanalytic experience.  It wasn’t  _ your  _ fault that Kagura’s eyes were so damn big and blue and innocent sometimes that you felt like a sinner trying to lie to them.

You slammed the door of your room open, prepared to throw as many insults and poorly-crafted attempts at making up at his face as you could, but the darkness inside stopped you in your tracks.

The bastard was already asleep.  At  _ this  _ hour.  You marched over there, huffing, ready to shake him awake and berate him for making his damn kid so upset.  As you got to the edge of the futon, and drew in a breath, he beat you to the punch yet again.  He rolled over, breath hitching, and in the small beam of light streaming into the room from the hallway you could see his brows drawn low, jaw clenching, eyes flicking rapidly under their closed lids.  All protests and accusations abruptly died somewhere in the pit of your windpipe.

“You liar,” you murmured, lowering yourself into a sitting position and crossing your legs.  “It bothers you just as much.”

He mumbled something, as if in response, and rolled over again.  A shiver danced its way down his spine, and you sighed.  You weren’t very hungry, anyways.  The kids would just have to eat with the ghosts tonight.

All those years of keeping watch over the camp might just come in handy after all.

It was only after a couple hours later that he jolted awake, eyes wide, and you with him, startled out of an intentionally light doze.  His eyes swiveled to you and he visibly jumped, before anger twisted his mouth into a frown.

“ _ What the hell are you doing?”  _ he hissed, flinging the comforter away from him.  “You scared the  _ hell _ out of me, you crazy demon woman! Nakata should cast you in the next damn Ring movie.”

“Keeping watch,” you replied levelly, fixing him with a cool stare.  “Go back to bed.”

“Oh, right, yep, like you’re gonna catch the fairy that brings me my dreams red-handed, coming in through the window with his bag of sand –  _ you are so full of shit.   _ There’s nothing to keep watch  _ for,  _ unless you’re on the lookout for an axe-wielding murder ghost to put me out of my misery.”

“Would you just shut up?” you snapped.  “I’m trying to have a meaningful symbolic moment with you, here, and you’re  _ ruining  _ it.”

“There’s nothing meaningful and symbolic about watching me sleep, you crazy bastard!”

“I wasn’t watching you sleep, you absolute loon!  I’m just here to make sure my damn subconscious doesn’t pull another fast one on me, you’re not special.”

“I can’t believe you just called me a loon, what  _ era  _ are you living in?”  With a look sharp enough to wither crops, he turned away from you, grabbing the comforter and tucking it up to his chin.  “And don’t expect me to share with you.  That offer has been rescinded.”

“Fine by me,” you sniffed.

“ _ Fine by me,”  _ he imitated, and you flung one leg out to kick him in the small of his back.

“ _ God  _ dammit of  _ all  _ the –”

“Go!  To!  Sleep!” you insisted, and his groan was loud enough to shake the floor.

“Only if you shut the hell up!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

The two of you lapsed into irritable silence,  but it wasn’t enough to keep a small kernel of hope from fluttering around in your ribcage.

* * *

The last day of the onsen vacation (“I could only afford two days you wanna fuckin’ fight about it, I didn’t see you coughing up any money from your fancy cabaret job –”) was met with reluctant groans from Shinpachi and Kagura, and for you relief so potent it actually made you feel weak.  No more sharing a bed, no more sharing a bed, no more sharing a goddamn bed . . . it was almost enough to make you believe some higher power was looking out for you, after all.

“Do we  _ have  _ to leave?” Kagura whined as you ushered her out of the ryokan entrance, two suitcases under each of her arms.  “It’s so nice here!”

“Yes, well, while you may be perfectly comfortable with staying in a haunted hovel, most people are not,” you sighed, hoisting your own (extremely small, might you add) bag over your shoulder.  “Come on, now, children, into the cab I had to pay for because Gintoki has no concept of how to actually plan anything –”

“I heard that!” he called from where he was trying to jam his suitcase into the taxi’s trunk, hands covered in comically pink mittens – courtesy of Kagura – against the mountain chill.  

“You were meant to!”  You eyed the already full-to-bursting trunk, and quietly motioned Kagura to just pile her suitcases in the taxi’s front seat.  The cabbie – a green, lizard-like Amanto with a cigarette tucked between his lips that wasn’t lit – grumbled in disapproval, which you thoroughly ignored.  

“Are you almost ready, Gin-san?” Shinpachi poked his head out of the car, because of course he was already packed and ready to go.  

Gin griped an unintelligible response amidst his forceful slamming of the trunk, and you distinctly saw the cabbie’s eyebrow twitch in the rearview mirror.  “Gin, if you keep this up, we won’t be home until the bar is closed.”

Kagura shot Shinpachi a look from next to you, and you thoroughly resolved to put as much weight on her as possible when you inevitably fell asleep.  

It wasn’t until five hours later, when you were brutally awakened by Kagura throwing you bodily out of the car with a cry of “My shoulder!  It’s broken!  Unfixable!  Shinpachi, we have to amputate!” and you landed very hard on the well-worn Kabuki-cho dirt, that you realized how old you were starting to get.  

You lay there for a second, sighing, staring up at the snow falling slowly from the sky, before your view was very rudely interrupted by Gintoki looming over you, one eyebrow quirked.  Before you could get a word out, he was walking away again, and you were left with only Shinpachi to help you to your feet. 

“Thanks,” you sighed, gathering your bag from his arms.  He opened his mouth to say something, looked pained, and shut it again.  You cocked your head at him, but he merely shook his in return.

Your thoughts were interrupted by Kagura’s demon dog bursting through the front door as Gintoki unlocked it, nearly sending him toppling over the railing on its mad dash down the stairs.  Kagura emitted an ear-piercing shriek, and met the dog halfway, wrapping her tiny arms around it and lifting it straight up into the air, in some sort of weird, romance-movie-esque embrace.

“I’m going inside,” you muttered, and Shinpachi shuddered in response before quickly following after you.

When you blissfully shut the front door behind you and padded into the living room, the door to Gintoki’s room was already shut, the faint sounds of unpacking coming from within.  You moved to do the same, but a light hand on your arm stopped you.  You raised your eyebrows at Shinpachi, and he worried at his bottom lip.

“You . . .,” he began, eyes scanning everywhere except your face.  “You know that he’s still . . . not over your argument, right?”

You blinked.  “Huh?”

“He’s never . . . this quiet.”

You felt like he had just doused cold water over you.  You laughed nervously.  “It’s a good Tite Kubo impression, Shinpachi, really.  The loose ends, the missing characters, the . . . wildly disappointing ending.”  Shinpachi levelled you a look, and you shut up.  

The concept that you didn’t have the slightest idea what was going on in Gintoki’s head was . . . unsettling.  After all this time – 

And, of course, naturally, that’s when you finally caught up to the page everyone else was on.

“I guess you do know him better than I do,” you mused, hand coming up to your chin to hide its shaking.  “I mean, cumulatively, you and Kagura have spent far more time with him than I have, altogether, even though I’ve known him, chronologically, but not sequentially, for years . . . you’re probably right.”  You turned to look at him, and he started like you had jabbed him.  “It’s probably best if I’m not around much for a bit.”  He started to say something, but you plowed right over him.  “We just both need some space. __ I’ll just take some extra shifts at work.  It’s fine.”  It most definitely was not.

“Touya-san,” he said softly.  “We’re happy to have you here.  Gin is too, even though he pretends not to be.  I know the two of you fight a lot –”

“Sorry about that, by the way.”  The apology came out of nowhere, but that didn’t change the feeling that you should have said it a while ago.  “I know we can be . . . interesting, what with –” You waved your hand indistinctly.  “But I’m sorry, still.”  

The stare Shinpachi fixed you with felt like it resonated down to your bones.  “You know, Touya-san, you’re really very kind.”

Your very sudden, very real urge to cry was interrupted by the phone ringing.  Before you could walk towards it, Gintoki was already in the room, groaning loudly, “What, they can’t even wait until after New Years to bother me?”  He picked up the phone, listened for half a moment, and grimaced.  “Oi, can’t you hold off on a such a troublesome job until the holidays are over, you bastard?” 

“ _ Gin-san!”  _ Shinpachi hissed, but Gintoki paid him no mind.

“Well you’ve sure got my banana in a blender, haven’t you, pal.  Huh?  I don’t care about your castle, what about  _ my  _ castle, it’s falling to pieces over here can’t you hear the townsfolk screaming, there’s Bahamut coming up over the horizon –”  A short pause, and Gintoki’s back went rigid.  “H-How much did you say, again?”

After a few more moments, the phone was placed back in the receiver, and Gintoki left the room without saying another word.

Otae was righteously furious when you showed up to the cabaret club on New Year’s Eve.  She lectured you for a solid fifteen minutes about family values and the merit of taking a few days off, and it wasn’t until you reminded her that she was there too that she finally let you off the hook.

“I can’t believe you,” she sighed, although all the anger was gone from her tone.  “Intentionally missing out on a comforting hotpot . . . and although Gin-san is detestable 99% of the time, I imagine it would be fun with those three.  Shouldn’t you be at home?”

You hummed noncommittally, intentionally not meeting her eyes, and you felt her eyes scanning the side of your face as you organized glasses at the bar.

“Something happened?”  You cringed, and she sighed again.  “How bad?”

“Not . . . earth-shattering,” you struggled.  “It’s just Gintoki.”

“Of course it is.  What did he do now?”  She started forcefully rubbing a glass clean with a dish rag.

“It’s not . . . it’s complicated.”  You gently tugged the glass from her hands before she could crack it in her grip.  “It was just an argument.  You know how he is.”  You ignored the curious look she gave you.

“Sure . . .,” she said unconvincingly, tugging the glass right back and giving you a searching gaze.  “That’s odd, though.  He’s usually never mad for long.”  You pushed down the unease that shot through your chest.

“Well you know how he is about . . . things.”  A look of understanding dawned on her face, and she placed a soft hand on your forearm.  “I’m fine,” you answered before she could ask.  “I shove all my emotions in a tiny box under my ribcage, you should try it sometime.”

“Your attempt at humorously deflecting the conversation won’t work on me, you know.”

“Otae-san, shouldn’t you be at home?  New Year, and all.”

“You should know better than to ask a question that can be directed right back at you.”  You resisted the urge to grind your teeth.  Your social skills couldn’t even bear to measure up to the mind games Otae was currently tricking you into.

“This is a  _ family  _ holiday.”

“Your point being?”

You didn’t like where this was going.  “The  _ point  _ being that I don’t quite believe I’ve passed the seven-step screening process to become a full-fledged member of the Sakata clan.”

Otae’s laugh came out strange, humorless.  “You both are so stupid, you know?”

“Well, yes, but who–”

Her next laugh was warmer, and she shook her head.  “Just go home.  No one’s going to come in tonight, and if they do, we can handle it without you.”  You tried to pretend that didn’t sting, just a little bit.  “Just go.”  She shooed you, hands fluttering, and you rolled your eyes.  The clock struck 10, two hours ahead of schedule, and you  _ knew  _ but it couldn’t keep you from hoping for strawberry milk and a walk home full of wonderfully familiar arguments, a tall broad back as he refused to walk next to you.  

Another girl warned you of the cold as you walked by, but as you slid open the front door you barely even heard her.

The empty street stretching out to either side of you punched the air out of your chest more than the cold ever could have.

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahaha remember when i didn't want this fic to have angsty bits..oh well lmao
> 
> i already have the beginning of the next chapter written, and i just have some events i need to piece together....i know i don't update this fic a lot but i'm actually thinking about it constantly..like every song i listen to it's just "huh now what kinda scene for this dumb gintoki fic can i project onto this"
> 
> (if u want a love song rec for these dumb idiots....it's kind of a weird band lmao but "a slow, slow death" by los campesinos has that kinda nonsensical yet desperately emotional tone i always attribute to these two....this whole band in general i really just vibe with honestly)


	7. What the Fuck is an Emotion and Why Does Everyone Have Them Except Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello i'm back with 11,000 whopping words of apology angst
> 
> (if you want a tasty song rec for the general Mood of this chapter.......then i recommend I Admit I'm Scared by Ó.......the song makes sense from both of their perspectives but i highly recommend listening to it from gintoki's for this particular chapter)

You passed through the streets of Kabuki-cho, alone.  You were one of many, all dressed up and heading to a shrine, a bar, a convenience store for a last-minute meal ingredient – heading home.  You tucked your hands deeper into your sleeves, and watched as all the apartment windows crawling up either side of the street around you lit up, one by one.  Laughter and the faint garbled sounds of cliche New Year's programs filtered down to surround your head, wrapping around you almost like a cotton blanket.  It was almost like there was no other sound in the world.  

You had passed the halfway point – the karaoke bar Shinpachi had told you nothing but bad things about – before you bumped into someone.  

Your feet skid in the snow and you were only able to maintain your balance through an iron grip on a forearm, muscles tense as they struggled to keep themselves upright.

“Hey,  _ idiot _ –,” a voice snapped from above you, and you broke your gaze from the asphalt only to wish you could glue it right back down.

Gintoki was standing over you.  The eyes peeking over his thick blue scarf were sharp, annoyed, and you unfastened your grip to put a few paces between you.  It was only then that you noticed, as he adjusted his grip to accommodate his reacquired second arm, that he was carrying a hotpot, lid clattering as he stood up straight.

“Why the hell do you have that?” you breathed, and left all the other questions you had unspoken.

“I don’t . . . own one,” he said slowly, staring at it as if it was something unpleasant about to bite him.  “And the old hag wouldn’t let me borrow hers this year.”

“You could just say the kids made you buy one, it’d waste a lot less of my time,” you pointed out, and he leveled you a glare.  “Besides, you’re going the wrong way.”

“I was headed to the store, idiot.”

“To do what?”

“Get ingredients, dumbass!”

“And how were you planning to transport said ingredients when your hands are full with the pot,  _ dumbass!” _

“In . . . the pot.”

“Oh, of  _ course.” _

He visibly bristled, and brushed past you, shoulder nearly knocking yours aside.  You turned on your heel with a huff, synapses crackling with the heat of anger and an argument and the sense that maybe you had control of this whole weird dynamic once again –

“Don’t follow me,” he snapped.

His quick footsteps were soon lost in the New Year’s crowd.  All of a sudden, everything felt too loud around you, too heavy.  It was like someone was about to slap their hands over your ears, but hadn’t quite gotten there yet, leaving you with only the rush of air to signal their arrival.  Endless, endless rushing.

You walked the rest of the way home, alone.

* * *

“Touya-san!” Shinpachi greeted you as you shouldered open the front door, shoes already halfway off your feet.  “Did you meet Gin-san on the way here?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” you said, bending down to brush the last remaining bits of snow from your ankles before stepping up onto the wood floor.  “He’s going to the store.”

“You didn’t go with him?”  Your fingers came up to brush at the hems of your sleeves, to tug at the back of your collar.

“Why would I?”  You looked up at him, gaze level, and his face held nothing but confusion and a slow-creeping sense of foreboding.  “He asked me not to follow him, anyways.  I figure I should listen to him at least once in my life.”

The words were like spitting glass from between your teeth.  You managed what you hoped was a semi-reassuring smile.  “Touya-san, if you –”  You interrupted him with a soft hand on his shoulder, didn’t trust yourself to speak for fear of it being clipped irritation filled with  _ god that moniker really has just become unbearable, hasn’t it.   _

“Aha!  So you  _ are  _ home!” Kagura’s petulant voice rang from the living room, and you turned to see her, hands on her hips, New Year’s yukata tied clumsily round her waist.  

“Hello to you, too, kid,” you said, oh so grateful for the escape she had given you.  “C’mere.  Your yukata’s all . . . wrong.”

“Is  _ not _ ,” she sniffed, but complied nonetheless, striding over with her hands swinging firmly at her sides.  “So when’s Gin-chan coming home?  With the veggies and the meat and the hotpot and the noodles and the  _ meat  _ –”

“Any minute, probably.”  You turned her around with a finger pressed into her elbow, and began working on untying the knot she had gotten herself into.  “I passed him about halfway back here but, knowing him,” you managed a shrug with both hands full of yukata ribbon, “you never know.”

“It’s too  _ tight,  _ Tou-nee.”

“First off, way too many vowels in that.  Second, it’s supposed to be.”

“Why do I have to wear it at all?”

“You don’t,” you sighed, smoothing out a crease near her hip.  “We live in the modern age, don’t we?”

“Gin-chan said I should, though!” she protested, turning to look at you over her shoulder.  “He said it’s traditional.”

“Hmm, well, an old man like him knows absolutely nothing about the modern age.  Women are always the ones who lead the way, you know.  I can help you change.”

“Well  _ now  _ I don’t wanna,” she groaned, spinning on her heel in a careening course for the living room couch before you were even halfway done with her damn ribbon.  “You made it all pretty.”

“Mm, ain’t that just the way,” you said with a sigh, taking note of the bowls and chopsticks set on the table, the smell of something simmering in the kitchen, the low hum of the TV on the New Year’s broadcast.  The air was warm, and heavy, settling on your shoulders like something that was familiar but maybe not quite welcome.  Deciding Kagura’s yukata was a lost cause, you sought out Shinpachi, “Do you need help with anything?”

He glanced at you from where he had been peeking into the kitchen, checking on the food.  “No, I don’t think so,” he said, going to take a seat on the opposite couch.  “We’ve just been waiting for Gin-san to get back.”

You nodded, going to sit by Kagura, who was busy watching the TV with a critical eye.

“She looks awful,” she sniffed, in regards to the overly-smiley announcer.  You gave her a once-over, nuclear white smile and all, and snorted. 

“Kagura, she’s wearing almost the exact same thing you are.”

“Exactly.”  She  _ hmm _ phed, but continued to stare, analyzing the poor TV persona like she was a contested art piece.  You mussed Kagura’s hair with the palm of one hand, eliciting an indignant cry, and you laughed.  “Hey, now you’re acting like a  _ real  _ sister, I never signed up for this!” 

“Oh?” you said, as your stomach started an Olympic gymnastics routine around your rib cage.  You drew your hand back from her head, flexing your fingers the slightest amount.  A  _ sister.   _ It almost made you want to laugh with giddiness.  The amount that it made you want to cry as well was, for the time being, irrelevant.  

“Yeah, I don’t appreciate this discrimination, I’m a valuable member of this household and I deserve to feel  _ powerful.” _

“Kid, your giant alien dog and your freakish alien strength give you just about as much power as you’re ever gonna need.”  Shinpachi groaned from across the table, and Kagura grinned.

“Well what if I don’t wanna be an alien?  What if I wanna be a freakishly strong . . . person?”

“You’re my favorite freakishly strong person-alien, how about that?”

“Please don’t encourage her,” Shinpachi mumbled, as Kagura’s eyes lit up like sparklers, and she took an inhale so deep you thought she just might explode.

“Could you not be soiling the atmosphere in my home for one  _ second?” _ came a loud, unfortunately deeply familiar voice, as its owner punctuated the last syllable with the slamming of the front door.  

“Happy New Year to you, too,” you snapped, crooking an arm over the back of the couch in order to glare at him better.

“Don’t give me that look, I’ll bill  _ you  _ for damages next time she destroys my roof in a fit of self-confidence.”

“Maybe you should build a better roof.”

“ _ Maybe  _ I should kick you out of my house.”

“ _ Maybe  _ you should get your guilt-hotpot and guilt-ingredients on this damn table before I take these poor children out to dinner myself,” you huffed, because if he wanted to bicker by god you would  _ bicker.  _

“Do you mean it?!” Kagura shrieked, springing into the air like a frog.  “Are we going out to dinner for the first New Years of our lives?  Does she really mean it, Gin-chan?!”

“No,” he said firmly, heaving the hotpot onto the coffee table with a clatter.  “We have our traditions, and those traditions are to celebrate this holiday as painfully last-minute as we possibly can.”

“He admits it . . .,” Shinpachi murmured in disbelief, as you suppressed a sharp bark of laughter.

“Oh-hoh!  Tradition!” Kagura crowed, as if she had just cracked the Da Vinci Code itself, clambering to stand on the couch cushions like a queen waiting to be crowned.  “Mmhm, mmhm!  How could I have ever doubted you, Gin-chan!”

“Ah, you sure are quick to jump ship.”

“She’s jumping ship for  _ tradition,”  _ Gintoki said with just enough sneer on the emphasis that you wanted to punch it right off his face.  “I’m sure your New Year's traditions couldn’t even compare to the brilliance of our mediocrity.”

“You know, Gin-san, usually it’s polite to  _ ask  _ about those things before you –” Shinpachi tried, before Kagura leaped in front of him like a bodyguard preparing to be shot.

“He’s right!  What about your traditions?”

“Nothing special,” you backpedaled, cursing yourself for playing right into their hands.  “Told stories and stuff.”

“What kinda stories?” she pressed, bracing her hands on either side of the hotpot as she leaned towards you. “The action kind? The sad kind? The kind that get serialized in Shonen Jump and then get an anime but the anime is so bad that the manga eventually dwindles into obscurity and has a rushed unsatisfactory ending –”

“The sad kind, the sad kind, _Je_ _ sus,  _ Kagura,” you said hurriedly, grabbing her by the shoulders and forcefully pushing her away from the pot of boiling water underneath her. “We told sad ones to commemorate all the bad shit that happened year previous, good story to welcome the new year, yadda yadda, mochi, soup, done.  You happy?”

“That’s . . .,” Shinpachi said, cocking his head.

“Amazing!  I wanna hear a story!  Gin-chan, tell her we want to hear a story!”

“Why the hell do you think she would listen to me, brat.”

“She thinks you’re special, that’s why, stupid –”

“O-kay! How about Princess Kaguya? Do we like Princess Kaguya I like Princess Kaguya so let’s talk about Princess Kaguya, okay? Okay? Alright!”

“Alright!” Kagura mimicked, pumping her fist in the air as she threw herself down next to Shinpachi.

“This better not take too damn long,” came the Gintoki Gripe as he settled in next to her.  You weighed the pros and cons of decking him right then and there.  Truthfully, you didn’t think you could get away with ruining New Year’s, too.

“Yeah, yeah, shut your trap.  Alright, uh, you’ve probably heard this one before so I’ll keep it short –”

You began slowly, eyes wandering around the room as you tried to collect all the details that had started to wander off over the years.  It started off easy, you remembered.  Poor couple, childless, magic baby-in-the-bamboo.  As you described the fateful day, and watched Kagura’s expression go through the whole store-stock of emotions, you wondered if she had ever heard an Earth fairy tale before.  To confirm your wonderfully scientific hypothesis, she soon interrupted – 

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”  You nodded.  Her hand came up to her chin thoughtfully, brow furrowing in concentration.

“Please don’t think so hard about it,” Gintoki sighed.  “You’ll die.”

Kagura elbowed him so hard he slid a good four inches away from her, and she beckoned you to continue.

You moved on into Kaguya’s early childhood, your hands waving and illustrating various shapes and scenes as you conducted a little imaginary orchestra of a gaggle of mountain children, hopping and playing the days away.  Your fingers hopped and skipped along with them, your halting, admittedly unimaginative storytelling gradually smoothing out, like someone had pressed their hands into the fabric of it and smoothed it out, thread by thread.  The more you talked, the more it came back to you.

You actually had to stop speaking entirely, for a second, when you realized you were telling it just as Azumi used to.  Right down to the dramatic pauses, the flowing gestures.  God, when was the last time you had actually thought about her?  You resumed quickly, and attempted to cover up the slip with a reassuring smile.  There was, notably, one member of the audience who didn’t seem to quite buy it, but you were too busy keeping images of campfires and the smell of roasting chestnuts from clogging your throat entirely.

The rhythm eventually settled of course, the story you had heard a thousand times falling out of you like air, like the breath from your lungs.  As your hands waltzed over your lap, your mind foxtrotted away, the bastard, and you were abruptly confronted with a vivid image of your-sister-not-sister-you-had-gotten-tired-of-trying-to-explain-the-difference.  So maybe your memory was a little fuzzy, the exact color of her hair probably a little bit off, but you had all the important bits down.  The way her nose crinkled when she laughed, the mischievous cast to her eyes when she was trying to build up enough of an atmosphere to scare you, the way she would sputter when she told a stupid joke.

You looked at Kagura, at the way her eyes were sparkling, the way her mouth was turning up at the corners as you described the intricacies of Kaguya’s palace life.  You looked at her, and it was so familiar that it hurt.  The furrow of her brows, the way her tongue was poking from between her lips as she concentrated.  She looked nothing like Azumi, and yet at the same time there she was.

It was around this point in the story, with the creepy emperor and the moon powers, that she interrupted again, breaking your train of thought, “Wait, what powers?  What did he do?”

“That’s a question to be answered absolutely never,” Gintoki broke in firmly, and you hadn’t even been aware he was listening.  “Shut up and let her finish, brat.”

You continued on, somehow keeping yourself from glancing in Gin’s direction as you detailed the end of Kaguya’s story, the whole moon thing, her parents, the return to the mountain village, her one closest, dearest friend – and this was the part of the story you had been dreading the most.

“She hasn’t seen him in years, you know,” you said.  “Not since they were both tiny little kids scraping their knees up in the mountains.  When she finally meets him, she sees he already has a wife, already has a family.  His life continued on without her.  And, without quite knowing it, she silently prayed for the moon people to take her home.”

“But . . . why?” Kagura asked, and you didn’t even mind the interruption this time.  Your hands twisted in your lap, a small, sad smile tweaking the corners of your mouth.

“She realized she wasn’t happy.”

Without any warning, Gintoki rose from his seat, irritated sigh following him as he strode away.  “I can’t take this anymore, we’re eating,” he snapped, before disappearing entirely into the kitchen.

“Awww, you didn’t even get to finish,” Kagura whined, slumping back in her seat.  “And it was just starting to get  _ good.” _

“Another time, kiddo,” you promised, but were soon drowned out by the rattling of dishes and bowls as Gintoki re-emerged, squatting down next to the table and dumping in the hotpot ingredients, one by one.  He wasn’t looking at any of you.  

You looked across the table at Shinpachi, who only shrugged.  A small, tiny knot of not-quite-guilt squirmed upwards towards your sternum.  The kind of not-quite-guilt that you weren’t really ready to admit was actual guilt, plain and simple and raw.  You had done something, again, somehow, and the thought made you angrier than you knew what to do with.

You were tired of being so  _ careful. _

“Well I liked the story,” Kagura affirmed, nodding to herself as she grabbed a bowl and chopsticks from the table. 

“You just liked it because her name sounded like yours,” Gintoki sighed as he seated himself next to you on the couch, strategically placed at odds with Kagura and Shinpachi. “Now . . .”  His chopsticks clacked together, almost like the bell at a wrestling match.  A clock chimed in the distance, eleven tiny rings, and before you knew it, an all out war had begun.

You sat back, bowl and chopsticks clutched uselessly in your hands, as slabs of meat flew from chopstick to chopstick, occasionally exchanged for an unwanted vegetable that was immediately tossed – “ _ That okra feint won’t work on me for the second year in a row, Gin-chan! _ ” – and you honestly had no goddamn idea what you were looking at.  Kagura’s cheeks were stuffed full to bursting with as much meat as she could snatch, Shinpachi’s glasses were fogged over with steam, yet still fighting admirably, and Gintoki’s cheeks were smeared with sauce from meat that kept being ripped from his jaws.  It was, by far, the strangest New Year’s spectacle you had ever witnessed.

“Hey guys, uh, I have a question,” you offered meekly, as your wandering chopsticks were very quickly knocked aside.

“What?” Gintoki snapped, holding his bowl high above his head where Kagura couldn’t reach.

“Can you all  _ chill? _  Jesus, didn’t you buy enough meat for everyone?”

“Of course not,” he said, as if you were an idiot for thinking so.  “Do you think I’m made of money.”

“You’re made of  _ something,  _ that’s for sure,” you grumbled as you made a brave, yet ultimately futile, jab for a pretty hunk of beef within your reach.  “Is it like this every year?”  You silently bemoaned your lost beef hunk as you watched it disappear into Kagura’s jaws.

“If you don’t like it, then get out,” Gintoki grunted, around the piece of meat Kagura was currently trying to rip from between his teeth.  “ _ I’m  _ not keepin’ ya here.”

Before you had time to properly dissect what exactly he meant, all three Beef Tournament Wrestlers abruptly leaned back, sighed in unison, and gently placed their chopsticks down.  When you looked, all that was left of the hotpot was a couple sad chunks of shimeji mushrooms.

“Admirable competition this year, comrades,” Kagura intoned, nodding her head to Gintoki and Shinpachi in turn.  “The harvest was exquisite, ripe for the taking.”

“You say that because you engulfed the most meat, by far,” Shinpachi moaned, staring forlornly at the now-entirely-mushroompot.  

“Pattsuan, if you want your fair share of meat, you need to buy it three months in advance and hide it in your sock drawer like the rest of us.”

“No.”  Shinpachi set about to gathering the dishes, offering you a sympathetic glance as your stomach gave a pitiful, low whine.  

“Don’t pity her, Pattsuan, only the strong survive in this household.”

“Strong of stomach, strong of mind.”  Gintoki and Kagura nodded to each other, as if they had just acknowledged a universal truth.

“But hey, hey, Gin-chan,” Kagura chirped, swapping personalities like a normal person would hats, “can we listen to the rest of Touya-nee’s story?  It was getting really good, and I –”

“No.  You can just go to the library and read about it yourself.”  Kagura visibly deflated, and something red and mean and hateful reared up at the back of your skull, and you were just so goddamn  _ tired  _ that you felt like you would never be over it.  In that one moment, you wanted to hurt him, and you wanted to hurt him bad.

You could blame it on a lot of things.  You could say it was how much Shinpachi and Kagura adored him, how  _ everyone  _ adored him, sometimes not in as many words.  How everything had somehow gone right for him, how the bratty samurai kid had somehow grown a distorted variety of kindness.  How he had never reserved any for you.

That was always what it came back to, wasn’t it.  Even though it shouldn’t, even though you hated it.  Even though you had two new pseudo-siblings that you would take a bullet for despite the fact you couldn’t even articulate why, everything in you revolved around you and Gintoki.  Gintoki and you.  An entity that never existed in the first place, and yet it was all you pored over, all you turned back to in moments of reflection.  You  _ hated  _ it.

Loathe as you were to admit it, and honestly you probably never would, there was something.   _ Something  _ had happened to you out on that war-torn battlefield all those years ago, somewhere between persimmon trees and the cold taste of iron in your mouth as he had walked away from you for what you thought was the last time.  Something about his sharp tongue, perpetual dour mood, dead red eyes, and that  _ stupid  _ silver hair had sent you roaming through half the damn country trying to find it again.

You didn’t know what  _ it  _ was.  You didn’t know what you had been looking for.  Maybe you never would.

And in that moment, as he was staring disinterestedly at the ceiling, at something imaginary that you couldn’t see, wouldn’t see, you decided you were tired.

You decided to stop looking.

Because now, you no longer wanted to know what it was.

“It’s okay, Kagura,” you said, and you could hear yourself, but it didn't sound like you, tone slipping into something higher-pitched and aloof, the change so sudden that Gintoki actually spared you a glance.  It only served to make you angrier.  “I know a lot of stories.  A lot of really  _ good  _ stories.”

“Like what?” she asked, unaware of the tension in your limbs, the way your teeth had started to grind in the back of your jaw.

“Oh, you know, simple kinda stuff. Like Momotarou, the one about Urashima Tarou – the Shiroyasha.  Casual stories.  Everyone knows 'em.”  You could feel Gintoki’s eyes burning into your face.  You didn’t care.  You really really really  _ really  _ didn’t care.

Before either Kagura or Gintoki could respond, you had gotten to your feet, and followed Shinpachi into the kitchen.

“Touya-san?” Shinpachi questioned, looking slightly appalled as you tugged the hotpot from his grip and started to run the tap in the sink.

“It’s nothing,” you said, squeezing dish soap into it so fervently the plastic bottle gave an offending squeak.  “You know, I still haven’t gotten used to being referred to as Japan’s second most transparent lake.  I should start keeping brochures on me.”

“Is that really where the nickname comes from?”  Shinpachi leant one elbow onto the counter next to you as you rolled up your sleeves, idly watching the bowls bob back and forth as you dunked them in the sink with more force than was necessary.  “I didn’t realize the two of you ever went so far north as Hokkaido.”

You grunted in assent, letting the soft clink of cheap ceramic in your hands soothe your nerves.  You chose not to correct his assumption that it had been just the two of you (when had it ever been, really).  “It’s beautiful up there.  Kinda . . . removed from everything.  I mean, it is its own island, but you know what I mean.”

“I’d love to go someday,” he sighed, expression growing a tad exasperated.  “The only traveling we do is for jobs.”

“I’ll take you someday.”  The certainty in your tone surprised you both, and you blinked at each other before cracking identical smiles.  Something almost like hope fluttered around in your chest.  It was so nice you almost forgot you had just torched any sort of further relationship with this makeshift family only a couple minutes prior.

“I’d like that,” he said, pushing his glasses up his nose, and you felt so much affection in that one moment that it actually kind of physically hurt.  Shinpachi was so kind.  Kinder than you deserved.

(You could see how Otae had developed such a complex about him.)

“We should go back out and check on them.  Make sure they haven’t burned anything down,” Shinpachi said, saving you the trouble of having to do any emotional deflecting yourself.  It almost seemed like he was used to it – who were you kidding, of course he was.  

You stared longingly at the sink filled near to the brim with angry soap suds, and sighed.  “Alright.  The dishes can just soak overnight or – something.”

“Touya-san, you don’t know how to do the dishes, do you.”

“Nope.”

When the two of you emerged back into the living room, Gintoki was gone, and Kagura was fast falling asleep, head nodding as she tried to keep up with the New Year’s broadcast.  

“Did Gin-san go to bed?” asked Shinpachi as you roused Kagura and nudged her towards her bed.  

“Mm.  Weak,” was her only response as she collapsed into her closet, leg dangling off the edge of her cot.  “What true warrior . . . falls asleep before midnight.”

“This one apparently,” you huffed, tucking her leg back where it belonged and half-closing the door behind you.  “Get some rest, kiddo.  Both kiddos.”  You glanced at Shinpachi, who laughed again as he made his way towards the entrance.

“I probably should be getting home,” he admitted, as you followed politely after him to wish him goodnight.  “Ane-ue will probably be back soon.  Are you sure you’ll be okay here by yourself, Touya-san?”

“I am, contrary to popular belief, a fully functional adult, Shinpachi.”

“I know, but . . . those two are a lot if you’re not used to it.”  Something in his tone sounded slightly off, but before you could pick it apart any further he was waving you goodbye.  You waved in return, smiling softly as the front door slid shut behind him.  The rush of cold air made you shiver.  You were alone.

You turned back to the living room, looked at the TV, still droning softly, looked at Kagura’s closet, emitting soft snores.  Looked at the door to Gintoki’s room, resolutely closed, rice paper softly changing colors in tune with the lights outside the window that he had probably forgotten to close.  You wondered if he was asleep or not.  You wondered if he was staring at the door, too.

You didn’t think so.

You needed ice cream.  You needed liquor.  You needed  _ something.   _ You settled for watching Oguri Shunnosuke promote for his latest movie – something about a samurai and his two kids, sounded boring, honestly – his unnaturally white teeth flashing as the big clock behind him slowly started counting down towards zero.  

You stretched out onto the couch, head pillowed on your arms, and watched as the room was turned into a secondhand projection of reds, blues, greens, and purples as the New Year was officially rung in by a round of fireworks.  Muted cheers erupted from the bar below, a few soft pops of champagne bottles being violently uncorked, and you closed your eyes.  

Gintoki’s expression when you had left the room kept flashing behind your eyelids, until you finally drifted off into a fitful sleep.

* * *

You woke to the sound of the phone ringing.  The harsh sound wrenched you ungraciously from a weirdly convoluted dream, and you sat up like you had been bitten, vision blurred and wobbly.  By the time you stumbled over to Gintoki’s desk and yanked the receiver to your ear,  _ anything  _ to make the damn sound stop, the calm of the morning had been broken, and your racing heartbeat refused to calm down.

“Hello?” Your voice sounded like you had just swallowed a not insubstantial amount of rocks, and you subtly tried to clear your throat.  “Why the hell are you calling so early in the morning?”  Somewhere in the back of your head you reflected that your customer service skills needed some serious touching-up.

“It’s . . . one in the afternoon,” came the response, and you felt your ears burn with embarrassment.

“One in the afternoon on  _ New Year’s Day, _ ” you retorted, in a tone of voice you  _ definitely  _ should not have used, and you heard the person on the other end of the line make a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh.

“This was the time I was supposed to call, wasn’t it?  At least that’s what Sakata-sama had said to me.”

Such a hoity-toity honorific for someone who was probably drowning in a puddle of his own drool in the next room made your nose scrunch in distaste.  “Whether it is or isn’t,” you sighed, rubbing at the crease between your eyebrows, “why are you calling, again?”

“The job?  The bodyguard for Tenketsu-dono?”  Christ on an elliptical, this guy sure did know how to grovel.  You considered, for a brief second, just hanging up on him.  “I called just after Christmas with the offer, after hearing of your . . . organization through word of mouth.  Sakata-sama had given me the impression this would be kept discreet.  Apparently I was mistaken.”

“Ugh, wait wait wait,” you groaned, as you heard the shifting sounds of a receiver about to slammed down.  “I’m uh . . . acquainted with Sakata-shit.  A temp here, I guess.  If you’re being generous.”  When all you were met with was uncertain silence, you added with more than a touch of irritation, “I’ve known him a long time.  Listen, he didn’t tell me about any of this, if you couldn’t glean that already from my total ignorance about this whole damn thing.”

“Sakata-sama had already given me the impression that he wasn’t interested in this opportunity,” the person (a man, you thought, by the cadence and tone, but you couldn’t be sure) continued.  “Despite Tenketsu-dono’s willingness to pay him double your usual rates.”

You hadn’t even realized the Yorozuya  _ had  _ rates.  You had sort of assumed any money they made were from pity donations.  “Why doesn’t he want it?” you asked, tucking the phone against your shoulder so you could listen for any sounds of movement.  There were none.

He must still be asleep, or he was really good at faking it.

“This is a job fit for only one person.  Sakata-sama expressed he wouldn’t be taking it unless he could bring along two . . . ‘interns’?”  You snorted despite yourself.  You couldn’t wait to tell Shinpachi.  “Regardless, since he was not the one to answer the phone, I can only assume that he is firm in his denial.  With that, I have other duties to attend to.  Good day.”

“I’ll take it,” you said in a breathless rush as the door to Gintoki’s room slid open.  You didn’t dare look at him.  “I can take it.”

“Are you sure?” the man, person, whoever, asked, and you felt a pair of eyes digging into the space between your shoulder blades.  “Sakata-sama was quite insistent.”

“Interns not necessary,” you said, and the footsteps that had been advancing toward you came to an abrupt stop.  “They won’t leave his side, anyways.”

“Well . . . this is an unexpected, if not pleasant, turn of events,” the voice hummed, and you heard the faint scratching of a pencil on paper. “How soon can you arrive?”

“Depends, uh . . . where are you, again?”  You started rummaging over the top of the desk for a scrap of paper and a pen, and heard a distinct grunt of annoyance from behind you.  You ignored it.  “If you tell me you’re all the way in Hokkaido then we need to have a serious discussion about honesty and leading people on.”

You managed to get a laugh out of him.  “No, no.  Tenketsu-dono’s castle is only a short distance away from the Meototaki Waterfalls, in the Niigata Prefecture.  Of course, we’ll have you be staying at a nearby hotel for the duration of your stay.”

“Yeah, okay, I’m gonna need a short grace period as I sell my kidneys to pay for the cab fare,” you snapped.  “Now I understand why you’re paying me so damn much.”

“An unfortunate drawback of this position.  Which is why we were so careful in our selection.”

You gnawed on your bottom lip with your top teeth.  Just based on your flimsy understanding of geography, Niigata was . . . more than a fair distance away.  Three hours by cab, at least, and god knows how many hours on foot and/or horseback if the driver wouldn’t take you that far.  The nearest town was . . . god, you didn’t know.  “What’s the nearest town, again?” you asked, like you actually knew.

“The nearest sizable settlement is Yuzawa.  From there I’d say it’s . . . a three or four day ride on horseback to the falls?  Longer if you’re delayed by snow.  I hope you’re a seasoned traveler.”

“You could say that,” you bit out, thoughts whirling in so many different directions you couldn’t keep track of it all.  The rhythmic tapping of Gintoki’s irritated foot was only serving to make things worse.  You didn’t have  _ time  _ to think about this, and all your gut and your heart and (at the moment) your head were saying was – 

“I’ll take it.  I can leave by tonight.”

You had just finished scrabbling the hotel’s address down and exchanging farewell pleasantries, when the top of Gintoki’s shoulder and the edge of his scowl came into view.  You hung up quickly, and turned only a few degrees towards him, eyes fixed on the window behind the desk.

“What do you want.”

“Sorry, didn’t realize I had suddenly granted you executive authority over job decisions,” he snapped, and you could see him cross his arms in your peripheral vision.

“Well, that’s a good thing, since I didn’t  _ take  _ the job as one of your employees.  I took it for myself.”

“And how are you gonna acquire enough money for this, huh?  After the roundtrip fare you won’t be left with enough to buy a cheap drink and a lapdance –”

“You weren’t gonna take it anyways,” you snapped right back, anger flaring as you finally dared to look into his face.  “It’s a solo job, he said so himself.  So, therefore ,  _ I’m  _ taking it.  Shouldn’t you be happy?”  Your voice got higher, moving in a direct path towards near-hysterical.  “I’m finally getting out of your hair, aren’t I?”

Just as he was opening his mouth to respond, silver brows drawn low over eyes still hooded with sleep, or was that anger, burning low and insistent – 

“Touya-nee’s leaving?”

You both turned like a married couple caught in the middle of a fight (which . . . well), to see Kagura standing there, rubbing at one eye, ginger hair sticking up in every which direction.  “You never said you were  _ leaving.” _

“Well, kiddo, I – uh – didn’t know I was until about,” you glanced at the clock on the wall, “five minutes ago?”  Her expression seemed angry, sad, and confused all at once.  “I’ll come  _ back, _ ” you assured, even though it sounded tinny and false to your own ears.  “I just have to go guard this asshole and his dumb castle from – something, you know actually he didn’t really say.”

“Oh, just wait till Shinpachi hears about this.”  Gintoki's tone was smug, dipping into that loud exaggerated shout he got when he was trying to be annoying.

“You think a sixteen year old boy has more influence over me than  _ you  _ do?”  His deep scowl was enough of an answer.

“Speaking of Shinpachi –,” you started to wonder, just as the front door slid open, and maybe you were imagining that it sounded not unlike the first bell toll at a funeral.

“Afternoon everyone,” he said as he strode in, and then immediately stopped, and then immediately frowned.  “Oh, god.”

“Touya-nee’s leaving!” Kagura wailed.  You flinched, slightly.  Gintoki flinched, not-so-slightly, but maybe it was more of an irritated twitch.  “She’s leaving and she didn’t even  _ tell  _ me!”

“I told you I only found out like eight minutes ago, Kagura –”

“You decided you were leaving in the span of eight minutes?” Shinpachi asked, brows raised.  

“I’m not  _ leaving  _ leaving, I’m just taking a job!”

“Far away!  Three hours!” Kagura insisted, foot stamping, and holy hell this was turning into an ordeal.  It was turning into a goddamn spectacle, as far as you were concerned.

“Do any of you listen to anything I say?” you asked, teeth biting across each consonant, and Kagura’s face got, if possible, even angrier.

“ _ You’re  _ not listening to  _ me!” _ she shouted, and Christ on a boy band’s tour bus, everyone was shouting now.

“Kagura, please –”

“Do you brats ever shut up – ?!”

“You all are being irrational – !”

“That’s what  _ I  _ should be saying!”

“Except I’m the one saying it, so could you all just –”

“You idiot, this is a Yorozuya argument now, you’ll have to kill us to get us to stop –”

This had turned into a shitshow, the four of you standing in a sick sort of argument-square, yelling back and forth at each other in increasing volume and intensity.  Sadaharu started barking, emerging from god knows where to start hopping in circles around what was quickly turning into a circus display.  You didn’t know what was happening, why it was happening, why you couldn’t have just ended your phone call in peace and slipped away after dark with a nicely worded note and a maybe-probably empty promise of return – 

“ _ JUST TELL ME WHY!”   _

Kagura’s scream split through the air like a thunderclap, and you all turned to stare at her.  Her hair was flying in all directions, her face was red and flushed, her hands balled into tight fists at her side, and yet she looked as determined as a general in a war zone.  Her feet were planted, shoulders set, and she huffed out a loud, indignant breath.

“I . . .”  You started, stopped.  You tried to sift through all your thoughts, all your emotions (boy howdy did you back outta  _ that  _ one quick), every single logical reason why you had taken such a sudden, bound-to-be exhausting job.  “I wanted to.”  You shrugged, looked around at them all.  Gintoki was very pointedly not looking at you, arms crossed as he huffed in what was either disbelief, irritation, or both.  You hummed in thought, knowing that wasn’t enough of an explanation.  “I guess I’m just . . . used to traveling?  Used to not being somewhere too long.  I think.  I don’t know.”

Shinpachi was looking at you with something like sympathy on his face, and he nodded, slowly.  He placed his hand gently on Kagura’s arm, and she visibly deflated, looking at you like you were a long lost possession that she had then been told she couldn’t keep.  You didn’t really wanna think about how that was sorta exactly what you were.

“You  _ will  _ come back, won’t you?” she asked, and her voice was just as firm as it had been, eyes still boring into yours like two blue little searchlights.

“Of course I will,” you assured her.  “I’ll even call.  As often as I can.  I’m sure they have payphones or something up there . . . right?”

“How the hell should I know?  Niigata is a cursed place,” Gintoki sniffed, striding away to heave himself onto the couch.

“You just say that because you’ve never been there,” Shinpachi sighed.  “I’m sure it’s a nice place.”

“Yeah sure, full of mountains and . . . lagoons and –  _ lagoons _ .”

“Stop moping,” you said irritably.  “You can finally have your room back to yourself, and I’ll be out of your ugly gray hair.  Maybe I’ll even find a nice man and  _ marry  _ him, and only your kids will be allowed to come to the wedding.”

He spluttered incoherently before eloquently managing, “As  _ if. _ ”

“Well maybe someone in Lagoonville thinks I’m the best damn person around,” you replied, crossing your arms.  Kagura and Shinpachi just looked at each other, and Shinpachi opened his mouth to hopefully head this argument off at the pass.

“Do you need anything before you leave, Touya-san?”

“Oh.  Um.”  You hadn’t actually thought about it.  You had been so caught up in Gintoki’s asinine mini-argument that you hadn’t even considered the reality of what you’d agreed to.  The hand holding the piece of paper with the address on it curled into a fist.  What  _ did  _ you need?  “Uh, I don’t think . . . probably just some food for the road and . . . my clothes are fine?  I think?  I mean I managed to make it all the way here.”

Shinpachi hummed noncommittally, thinking.  “I suppose so,” he mused, and you could see him running through multiple mental checklists at once.  “But do you really have to leave so soon?”

You didn’t respond, for a moment.  You looked at the three of them (four, if you counted the dog that was now curled at Kagura’s feet), the way they subtly gravitated towards each other, towards each other and away from you.  The way Gintoki was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, Kagura leaning towards him, hand buried in Sadaharu’s fur.  The way Shinpachi was angled, body like a guiding line directing your sight to them,  _ look at them look at us.   _

It wasn’t even close to bordering on intentional, you knew.  It was just how they were.  It was the way they had bonded and folded together and connected tiny little invisible strings between themselves, over years of close proximity and turmoil and sacrifice (Kagura would tell you the stories Gintoki didn’t like to talk about.  All of a sudden all the mottled scar tissue covering his torso had made a lot more sense).  This dynamic they had, this family, could be molded, altered, made to fit an extra addition, or two, but never for long.  Friends were allowed, welcomed, invited in with arms that angrily insisted they weren’t open.  But they were like a spring, could be coiled and stretched and bent, but they would always,  _ always  _ spring back to how they were.  How they always would be.

You suddenly felt like you had aged a decade.  In reality, the clock had only ticked three times, and Shinpachi had only just started the initial stages of a worried expression before you hummed.  The sound was vague, and definitely not an answer, but you soon followed it up with, “Yeah, I think so.  The quicker I get there the better, right?”

Shinpachi nodded slowly.  He wasn’t looking at you.  A quick glance around the room revealed to you that none of them were.  Even Sadaharu was staring at a spot somewhere left of the television.

You didn’t know why you hadn’t thought this would break everything.  Why you hadn’t considered that running away might actually break some things along the way, this time.  You had spent a whole lifetime running, but this was the first (and most likely only) time that there was more collateral damage than just you.

Oh, well.

Whatever fleeting happiness you had found here, whatever sense of community, of  _ family  _ – you didn’t really deserve it, anyways.

* * *

The rest of the day moved like it was in slow motion, and you really wished it wouldn’t.  You moved what little clothes you had come to acquire out of the bottom drawer of Gintoki’s dresser, collected your toothbrush and toothpaste out of the bathroom, checked to make sure your one pair of shoes wasn’t too badly ripped up, and all in all these preparations took approximately an hour to complete.  Your rucksack was packed, compressed, tied, leaning up against the doorpost leading into the foyer.

Shinpachi had left soon after you had started packing, saying he had to run errands for his sister.  He had looked both eager and reluctant to leave, and you had never empathized with something more.

The only time Gintoki had moved from the couch was to procure himself an egg on rice, and then once again to procure one for Kagura.  She was laughing far too loudly at the sitcom on the TV, the sound successfully masking the tempo of your feet pacing back and forth across the room.

After about fifteen minutes of this, Gintoki gave a loud, irritated sigh, and marched his way into the kitchen.  This time, he did not return, for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, and you got the distinct impression you shouldn’t go poking around to see what he was doing.  You could hear the faint clatter of pots and pans, a knife chopping away on a cutting board, the rhythmic swish of his bare feet over the tile floor.

A loud commercial jingle interrupted the tiny pseudo-orchestra, as if it had actually been anything worth listening to, and you figured he probably just cooked when he was angry.  You thought Shinpachi had mentioned something like that once.

Even if he hadn’t, you didn’t care.

After an hour of that nonsense happening, and you had finally stopped pacing and perched on the edge of Gintoki’s desk, he finally re-emerged.  His face had gotten, if possible, even more irritated, his brows drawn so low that his eyes may well have been closed entirely.  He threw himself bodily onto the couch with a loud huff, so hard that you were sure he was gonna go straight through the ceiling of the bar below.

You shook your head, figured you didn’t really want to be in the room with him anymore, or with Kagura’s fake over-excitement, and also that you were hungry.

You made your way into the kitchen, poured yourself a bowl of cereal, and ate it leaning against the counter, watching the dust particles float around in the sunlight filtering through the doorway.  When you finished, you poured yourself another bowl.  And then another.  You considered cleaning out the fridge, but were dismayed to realize the jug of milk was the only item in it.  Well, that and something square and wrapped in a blue bandana, which you didn’t feel like touching for fear of discovering what Kagura’s newest science project was.  For all you knew it was a collection of dead frogs, or something.

After about 15 minutes of pacing around the kitchen, wanting desperately to go out but knowing you had no reason to, you  _ didn’t  _ need anything, it’s not like a last minute shift at the cabaret was going to appear out of thin air and grace you with enough money to afford to get to goddamn Niigata Prefecture.

Oh.  The cabaret.  You should probably tell Shinpachi to call.

The clock struck five, and you finally couldn’t take it anymore, sliding out of the kitchen as quietly as you possibly could.  Somewhere in that 15 minutes, Shinpachi had returned, and he slowly rose from where he had been sitting next to Kagura.

The tension in the air only spoke of one thing, saturating the back of your throat with a gross, scratchy heaviness.

It was time for you to go.

It was only when the soft sound of your rucksack being picked up somehow broke the atmosphere like a cymbal clap, when Kagura got up.  She set her long-empty bowl on the table, chopsticks laid across the top.  She stepped over Sadaharu, and flung open the door to her closet, rummaging around in the contents within.  When she finally turned back towards you, her gaze was clear, and determined, carrying the weight of someone who had said goodbye more than a few times in her life.

You thought of her mother, her father, her brother, and you felt absolutely terrible inside.  But there was no going back now.

She pressed a small hairbrush into your hands, and you desperately wanted to cry.

“I  _ know  _ you don’t have one,” she said quietly, so quietly, and if you didn’t know any better you would say she was so much older than her 14 years.  “And I know your hair’s always so messy in the morning . . . Gin-chan’s always complaining about how you look like a rejected Hunter X Hunter character.”  You snorted at that, despite yourself.  “So take this one!  But you have to buy me a  _ really  _ nice one in return before you get back.  Okay?”  She smiled, so wide that her eyes creased at the corners.  You swooped down, hairbrush momentarily forgotten, and hugged her.

Her arms came to wrap around you in return almost immediately, fingers digging into the fabric of your kimono, and you would never forget how strong and how small her arms seemed, wrapped around you like you were the most precious thing in the world.  One of your hands came up to ruffle at the back of her head, disturbing the two intricately wound nubs she had done only hours before.  She didn’t even seem to mind.  She only hugged you tighter.

“I’ll miss you,” you whispered into the shoulder of her shirt, so quietly that only she could hear.  She buried her face into your neck, and nodded so fervently that she almost clocked you in the side of the head.  

“I’ll miss you, too.  Please come back soon.”

You hummed in acknowledgment, nodding as you drew away from her.  You gave her shoulders one last squeeze, brushed a few stray hairs from her forehead, and resisted the urge to place a kiss there.  

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you,” you said in a singsong tone, as you rose fully to your feet and opened your arms in Shinpachi’s direction.  The cheeriness felt a tad hollow, a little bit like you were skipping stones in an underground lake with how it echoed around in your chest, but it felt . . . good.  Right, to be smiling with them.

Shinpachi rolled his eyes, said, “You’re making this sadder than it has to be,” before colliding into you with such polite force you almost tumbled right over.

“Says you,” you teased, ruffling his hair much more aggressively than you had Kagura’s.  “You’re the one who’s treating me like a body pillow.”

“Don’t ruin it,” he groaned, and only pressed his cheek into your shoulder harder.  If his glasses were digging into your skin a little bit too painfully, well, then neither of you would ever mention it.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” you said with a grin, pulling away and taking the care to wiggle his glasses back into place.  “I’ll call when I can, okay?  Make sure you pick up the phone.”

Shinpachi nodded, stepped a polite distance away, and the last person to say goodbye to was the one you had been dreading the most.

“I’m not hugging you,” he said from the other side of the room, arms crossed as he leaned against his desk in the very spot you had occupied earlier.  

“What made you think I wanted you to?” you retorted, turning on your heel away from him.  “See ya.”

You gave Shinpachi and Kagura’s heads one last pat, tweaked Kagura’s cheek to her wailing dismay, and then the foyer doors were sliding shut behind you. 

Just like that.

You sat down heavily on the raised stoop, and fished around for your shoes.  You were not going to cry.  You were an  _ adult,  _ and if two teenagers could hold back the tears for a goodbye to someone they had known less than two months, then dammit you could, too.

You were halfway through tying the second shoe, with only a sniffle or two to shame you, when the door behind you slid open with a smack, and something hard and heavy dropped onto your head.

You emitted a rather ungracious squawk, nearly tumbling from your seat entirely as something square and blue tumbled into your lap.

“What the  _ hell?!” _

“Take it or leave it, ingrate,” a familiar, monotonous, suspiciously dead-sounding voice rang from above you.

Upon second inspection, the item he had just dropped on your head was what you had found in the fridge earlier.  A square box (sizably heavy, the bump on your head complained), wrapped in a blue bandana, with a pretty little knot tied at the top.  You weighed it in your hands, scowl etching deeper on your face.  It was a bento box.

“I’m not taking your poisoned goods.  For all I know you’re just trying to pawn off some leftovers on me, for all I know they’re  _ rotten  _ and  _ moldy  _ –”

“Shinpachi made it, you damn idiot.  Do you  _ want  _ me to tell him that you don’t want it?”

You glared up at him for another couple of seconds, then, with a haughty sniff, you opened your rucksack and shoved the bento box inside.

“You better not be lying to me, Gintoki,” you threatened, finishing off the last tie on your shoe and finally standing up.

“Why would I?  You think I wanted to barge in here and ruin your perfectly sappy goodbye montage just to make you potentially vomit on public transportation for my distant and only plausible amusement?  I mean, yeah, I would, but not in  _ this  _ instance.”

“You’re terrible,” you grumbled, and made your way to the front door, hand gripping the edge to slide it open.  Your nails dug into the wood, and you didn’t move.  You sighed.  “See you around.”

You turned to look at him.  Leaning up against the doorframe, leg bent in front of the other, arms crossed, he raised a hand in farewell.  The warm light spilling from behind him turned the edges of him all to gold, gently tracing every outer strand of his stupid, stupid hair.  His lips were pulled down in somewhat of a neutral frown, eyes nearly concealed by the bangs he had shaken in front of them.  You thought of all the things you had said to him.  Of all the things he had said to you.  Of all the tiny little ways the both of you had ruined everything, and not just for the two of you this time.

Or maybe it was all your fault.  That’s what it was starting to look like.

You could already feel the chill from outside, the city already in near-darkness from the rapidly setting sun, and you repressed a shiver.  With a greater amount of willpower than you thought it would require, you turned back around, pulled open the door, and stepped outside.  The cold air took the breath out of you, and you had enough presence of mind left to gently slide the door shut.  

You closed your eyes, breathed in, let the sharp air work its way down your throat, choked with never-to-be-shed tears, and down into the depths of your lungs.  You exhaled.

And then you were gone.

* * *

_It had_ _ been years ago, that much he remembered.  Things were still in the batting grounds of “okay,” and not yet knee-deep in Shit Creek like he knew they eventually would be.  It had been spring.  The trees were flowering.  The grass was growing, birds were singing.   _

_ Bombs were going off. _

_ That much at least, he had gotten used to.  Troops were pouring over the horizon, endlessly, inhuman horns and teeth flashing in the same rhythm as the steel guns clutched in their hands.  All of a sudden, his sword had felt very small.  Like he was a child with a stick going up against a hurricane. _

_ He didn’t remember much of the actual battle. It hadn’t been much different from most of the others.  A lot of blood, a lot of sword-swinging, a lot of yelling.  Pretty much the same experience he could get from any B-rated Sega game – that is, until he found himself alone, a gigantic crocodile-Amanto-thing brandishing an axe just about as big as he was over its head.  He remembered its teeth, ironically.  Not how he had gotten there, not how his whole troop had somehow been separated, scattered like ashes in the midst of an attack they had seen coming. _

_ The thing grinned, the axe came whooshing down, and he had closed his eyes. _

_ Suddenly a sharp cry pierced the air, breaking apart the rush of sound as the axe flew towards his skull, something that sounded suspiciously like, “Move, you idiot!”  A body was knocking into him, sending him flying, there was the sickening crunch of bones shattering, and as his eyes snapped open he saw the crocodile-Amanto crumbling, a sword lodged in its abdomen.  Oh, and also a whole lot of blood. _

_ It took him a second to register that the blood was not, in fact, his own, and was not, in fact, the Amanto’s. _

_ “What were you doing?!” came the voice again, quieter this time, more strained.  “You stupid idiot.” _

_ He looked over, and there was a very large axe broken off into a very small shoulder.  The very small shoulder was currently gushing blood, flowing in rivulets down the metal shoulderpiece that had served to soften the blow enough not to take the whole arm off.  He finally had the presence of mind to take note of who the very-small-shoulder-gushing-very-big-amounts-of-blood belonged to. _

_ It was the person from the persimmon tree.  It was you. _

_ He very briefly reflected that he didn’t even remember your name. _

_ “Are you okay?” you had asked, hand attached to the non-damaged arm coming up to shake his shoulder.  “Did he get you?” _

_ “No,” he had snapped out of reflex, out of the fear that was just starting to ice up his veins.  “Sure as hell looks like he got you, though.” _

_ “Oh,” was all you said, casting a quick glance over to the axe that had once been taller than you, still lodged in your body.  “Yeah, I guess.”  Your voice got very weak, at that. _

_ He had no time to be thankful that your killing blow to the Amanto had also managed to shatter the axe into a much more manageable, much less deadly size, because now fear was giving way to anger, was giving way to what he knew best.  “What the hell were you thinking?!” he yelled, aggressively shoving himself away from you.  “You shouldn’t have done that!!  Did you see how wide open he was?!  I could have killed him, easy!” _

_ “Your eyes were closed,” you whispered, hand coming up to clutch at the wound, face going a shade paler.  “It’s okay.  I won’t tell anyone.  I just figured . . .” You bit your lip, wincing as you tried in vain to shift into a more comfortable position.   _

_ “What?!  Figured what?!” _

_ “Well . . .,” you said, studying the axe fragment like it was something other than your imminent death-via-blood-loss.  “I don’t really . . . do much, around here.  I’m not very good at fighting.  I’m not very good at cooking, or cleaning wounds, or saving people or . . . you know.  I’m sort of just here.”  You had shrugged, and a strangled cry had caught in your throat as the axe blade shifted.  “Uh . . . yeah.  Didn’t really think this whole army thing through.” _

_ “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked sharply, and he really should have pulled the axe out by then, should have stitched up the wound, or carried you back to camp, or done anything except sit there and listen to you die. _

_ “Well,” you said matter-of-factly, with a wry smile that definitely did not befit the situation, and served to flip his stomach like a pancake.  “We can’t lose you.  We can lose me.”  You had tried to laugh, but it came out more as a cough.  “Being expendable is the one I’m actually good at, after all.  Just wait ‘till I write home to Mom and Dad about this one.”  You snorted, and he didn’t understand the bitter look on your face, before it faded into one of increasing pain.  “Hey, can you do me a favor?” you asked in the tone of someone who needed him to pick up milk and bread from the corner store.  “Can you pull this damn thing out of my shoulder?” _

_ “You’ll die,” was all he had said, and wow he was good at this whole bedside manner thing, wasn’t he. _

_ “I know that,” you said, rolling your eyes.  “I just figured I’d rather die a couple meters closer to camp than sitting here with a rotting Amanto carcass.  Priorities, you know.”  You gave him that wry smile again, and he didn’t understand.  He didn’t understand anything about you, the words you were saying, the things you were doing.  The things – thing –  you had done for him, for no reason at all.  He couldn’t even remember your name. _

_ All he did was nod, move over, grasp the metal of the axe with both hands.  It dug into the small bit of the underside of his fingers that was exposed in his gloves, but he didn’t care.  He looked into your eyes, and you nodded, before quickly screwing them shut, hissing in a breath between your teeth.   _

_ He wrenched the axe out in one rough, tugging motion, and you screamed.  He decided it was now his least favorite sound in the entire world.  In the time he took to throw the axe blade in some other direction you had already collapsed backwards, propped up by one elbow, hand clutching the rip in your shoulder.  Your eyes were still closed, pained breaths huffing out of your mouth in tune with the blood now freely pumping down your chest.   _

_ He reflected that he probably really, really should not have listened to you.   _

_ He was already on his knees, tearing at the fabric of his yukata, tugging yours aside with a definitely excessive amount of force.  You said something unintelligible, hand flapping against his arm as your eyes sought his, and he couldn’t tell if that was sweat or tears running down your cheeks.  He didn’t want to tell, he didn’t even really want to think. _

_ He pressed down on the wound with the cloth he had torn, and you let out a sound that would have been a scream if you hadn’t clamped your teeth around it.  Your hand pushed against his arm harder, nails digging through the fabric and into his skin, and for the life of him he couldn’t decipher what you were trying to convey. _

_ “St . . .,” the syllable left your mouth in a pained huff as he tore apart his yukata even further, trying to make something in resemblance of a tied bandage.  “St-stop . . .,” you said, pushing against his arm again. _

_ “What?!” he snapped, only sparing you a glance.  “I owe you now, you giant moron, you big stupid Tatsuma-caliber idiot, I can’t believe you would even think of –” _

_ “I’m a girl,” you ground out, and the look on your face was like that admission pained you more than anything else that had happened in the last ten minutes. _

_ He couldn’t even think of a response, his mind just went white static, unsure of what to do with that seemingly useless and yet (distantly, distantly, somewhere that was currently being drowned out by all the panic in his veins) somehow important information. _

_ “And?” was all he managed as he ripped the sleeve off of your yukata to tie the makeshift bandages underneath your arm. _

_ “You cannot . . . bring me into camp like this,” you breathed, and for the first time he noticed that in his panicked rush to treat you in the only way his stupid fuzzy head knew how, he had ripped off your chestpiece, and half of the front of your yukata, leaving the only thing exposed a wide strip of cloth covering your – oh.  Oh. _

_ He looked away and – why why why why why, nope, nope!  No.  No thinking. _

_ “Just . . . fucking,” he said eloquently, tugging the shreds of your yukata back over you.  “There.” _

_ “That’s it?” you said, as he finished whatever the hell he was doing with that shitty wrapping, and rolled up into a crouch.  “You don’t –” _

_ “I don’t give a shit about any of this anymore,” he said as he reached for your undamaged arm and attempted to start tugging you upright.  You whimpered in pain, eyes screwing shut again.  “Come on.”  He got one arm under your legs, and with one quick motion that had you gritting your teeth so hard he thought they might crack, he had you rather awkwardly placed in his arms. _

_ “I can walk,” you said as he started to trudge, voice so quiet and weak it was like you were dead already. _

_ “Shut up.  No you can’t.” _

_ “This is embarrassing.  They’ll definitely know I’m a girl if you carry me into camp like this.” _

_ “You know, I appreciate the important looming discussion on gender politics and the military, but if you start giving any more of a shit about this when you’re literally dying, then I’ll throw you on the ground and leave you there.” _

_ “It’s not me who cares –” _

_ He growled so loudly a couple of birds picking at a carcass flew away.  (When exactly, had he managed to strand himself again?) _

_ “If they give even the tiniest infinitesimal amount of a shit about this then I’ll make sure they’re the ones sitting in front of a giant axe blow next time this shit rolls around because I swear to god this is too much for me and my blood pressure I need a damn milkshake I need something my sugar levels are critical –” _

_ You interrupted him with a laugh that gurgled far too much for his liking, and he did not want to look at the blood that he knew was trickling from the corner of your mouth.  A soft, far too cold hand came up to lean against his chest, right over his heartbeat. _

_ “Do you babble when you’re nervous?” _

_ The dream – goddammit this was a dream, wasn’t it – split off into static at that, at the pink-tinged smile you had directed up at him, and it only started to come into focus what must have been hours later.  He was being yelled at by a senior officer, whose face was so lost to memory that in DreamLand it only appeared as a faded flesh-colored blob, like someone who had been censored on reality TV. _

_ He didn’t remember the entirety of the lecture – even in his dreams he was growing increasingly forgetful – but it was something along the lines of “I can’t believe a woman was able to slip into our ranks how could you let this happen how could you bring her back we’ve been waiting far too long here for you to come back the enemy could have been upon us at any moment –” _

_ At a certain point he remembered, quite distinctly, saying, “Oh, shut up.” _

_ His commanding officer’s eyes had bulged.  His jaw had probably gone slack.  He hadn’t really been paying attention, at that point.  All he remembered was being unspeakably angry, and having the distinct sense that he should be the one bleeding out in the medic’s tent. _

_ “You –,” the officer spluttered. _

_ “Don’t you fucking tell me she doesn’t matter,” he said, and his anger had been so intense the dream couldn’t even properly replicate it.  “She’s important, too.” _

_ The dream abruptly splintered apart and –  _

Gintoki rose from his futon like he had been stabbed, in his now empty room, with the morning light seeping in through the blinds.  Leave it to an uncomfortably topical and badly-timed dream to wake him better than an alarm clock ever could.

As he kept his eyes away from the rolled up extra futon against the wall, and from the bottom drawer of his dresser that had been left slightly ajar, he moodily reflected on the fact that he had been deprived of a good, restful night’s sleep.  All because of some stupid dream, where he had been unspeakably pissed and angry, and he didn’t know why.

(He knew why).

He did not sleep well that night, and especially not the next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, rereading the first few chapters of this fic and noticing some continuity errors that i'm going to have to furiously retcon in upcoming chapters.........this is what happens when you make your fic up as you go along, kids, don't be like me
> 
> anyways, so!! all that happened. i've been gone for....a while. i graduated high school and am about to move into college and honestly? life is pretty good! quit my job! have all my priorities straight! finally figured out how to write this goddamn fic again!
> 
> in all seriousness though, this chapter gave me..a lot of trouble. i really regret writing myself into this angst pit but it's necessary for development, even though all i want to be writing is gintoki taking touya on definitely-not-dates to the aquarium and them going on random adventures but..here we are. the sweet moments will be even more poignant after all this crap gets resolved right? ...right? i hope so.
> 
> see you guys soon!! i'm on a roll now, there's a lot of ground we have to cover, the next chapter might be just as long as this one because there's a lot of introspection we gotta get through!! a lotta reminiscing!! a lotta dreams!!
> 
> again, thank you all for sticking with me!! it really means so much


	8. Little Known Fact: Blizzards Can Definitely Kill You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so sorry gintoki i missed your birthday by three days.........but i did manage to post on friday the 13th so i hope that makes it up to you, even in some small way.
> 
> god, i've lost my mind. college hasn't killed me, i swear, but it's sure come close.
> 
> anyways uhh i hope you enjoy this!! transition chapters are always really difficult for me to write but i think this one turned out pretty okay

When you opened your eyes, you were in the medical tent.  Something that seemed oddly . . . unfamiliar.  It was strange, like you hadn’t been there in years, and yet just from staring at blank tent canvas you knew exactly where you were. Your eyes traveled slowly over the seams in the fabric, latching onto a tiny piece of sky peeking through a rip near the center pole.  You could hear the sounds of training outside, the rhythmic singing of steel swords, loud huffs of breath and the sharp commands of the drill instructor.  It was comforting, in a way that was also weirdly unfamiliar.  

You shifted, in an attempt to roll over, and a pain shot through you so intense that you had to bite down on a yelp.  Why were you here, again?

“Don’t do that,” an exasperated voice sighed, and your stomach did a strange little jive that felt very  _ very  _ familiar.

Gintoki came into your peripheral vision, silver hair flopping as he leaned over you, one eyebrow raised.  

“Oh.  Hey,” you said.

“‘Oh.  Hey,’” he mocked in a terribly pitched sing-song voice, rolling his eyes and dipping out of your field of view.  From the sound of it, he had thrown himself into a chair not too far off.  “Don’t respond like I just happened to pass you on the street, you idiot.  And don’t move,” he groaned as you tried to roll over again, to get a better look at him.  “Or the doctor will attempt to kill me.  Again.”

“Why am I here?” you mumbled, as you were finally able to pinpoint that your shoulder was the source of the mind-numbing pain.

“God almighty,” Gintoki murmured, barely audible enough for you to hear, and you had the funny feeling he was digging the heels of his palms into his eyes.  “You save somebody’s damn life, almost die in the process, may very well have been  _ maimed  _ in the process, almost get kicked out of the damn army but then  _ I  _ had to intervene because now I owe you a damn life debt oh and did I mention that  _ you almost died _ – ”

Oh, there it was.  Your hand on his chest, the vibrations of his frantic babbling thrumming through your fingers and down the bones of your arm, your last soft, blood-tinged question before the world very abruptly went black.

“Okay, yep, check,” you interrupted him, and you turned your head just in time to catch the murderous stare he threw at you.  “Got all that, that’s why  _ I’m  _ here, so why are  _ you _ ?”

His expression got very, very dark at that, and he crossed his arms as he threw himself back into a slouch.  “Punishment,” he spat.  “Apparently arguing for the merits of someone who just saved my life is more difficult than it should be.  And here I thought all the army wanted was goddamn  _ heroes. _ ”  You laughed at that, a soft, quiet noise.  “Why the hell are you laughing?” he snapped, dark expression not fading an inch as he directed his attention back at you.

“I’m not a hero,” you said, simply, making a face at him.  “All I did was push you out of the way.  To be a hero I would have to . . . save a whole squad or something.”

If possible, his expression soured even further.  “It’s the job of the  _ rescuee,  _ not the rescu _ er  _ to decide who is and who isn’t a damn hero, you stupid idiot.”  

“You think I’m a hero, Gintoki?”  It made something warm stir in your chest.  You laughed so hard at his subsequent indignant splutter that it actually, quite physically hurt.  “Taking an axe to the shoulder might not have been so bad, after all.  They just sent you here to guard me?”

“No,” he snapped, fully recovered from your surprise-feelings-attack despite the fact he was still a little too red in the face.  “That’s what  _ he’s  _ here for.”  He gestured to another man, who you had to crane your neck to see, sitting as far away from the two of you as he possibly could.  Wedged into a corner of the tent, he very much looked like he would actually rather die than continue listening to this conversation.  “I just have to sit in here with you as reparations, or something.”

You hummed in understanding, then asked, “So when do I leave?”

“Huh?”

“The army.  How long till they send me off?”

Gintoki’s face did a weird sort of spasm, and he was silent for a few moments, before his eyebrows drew together and he looked at you with a sort of quiet ferocity you hadn’t ever seen before.  “They’re not gonna _ ,”  _ he spat.  “I made the case that if you could save my damn life then you could save anyone’s, and also some bullshit about declining troop numbers and usefulness and a bunch of other statistics I don’t understand, but  _ basically  _ –,” and here the eye contact was getting a little bit too intense, “ – you’re not leaving, and also I hate them.”

“Geez.  No need to risk being expelled from the army for little ol’ me.”

“Shut your face.  I hate you, too.”

You chuckled, then thought to yourself for a moment.  “Hey.”  He looked up from where he had been picking at a scab on his knuckle, eyebrows raised.  “Do you remember my name?”

He looked like he had just swallowed an orange whole.  “Of  _ course, _ ” he stammered, purposefully looking in any direction except yours as his hand came up to rub furiously at the back of his head.  “It’s – uh – you know, it’s – you did tell me I was definitely there and I definitely  _ definitely  _ remember it had uh – it had nice vowels and a couple of uh consonants, yep, those where there –”

You laughed so hard you didn’t even care how much it hurt.

* * *

Your name was being called, but it sounded like a curse.

Your name was being called, but it was like somebody was spitting it from between their teeth, like a poisonous thing, like an awful thing.

Heavy footsteps in the hallway, downstairs, pacing, a deep, angry voice, and that particular cadence you had come to know deep, deep in your bones.  It rattled you like a tin can, shook you like a wet sheet out to dry.

You didn’t know when you had started doing everything wrong.  

You could see Isamu, in the brief moment between when your door was open, and when you slammed it shut.  He would not defend you.  He would not save you.

Courage, indeed.

You could hear Azumi, gently pleading with your mother’s high, tinny voice downstairs.  She was trying.  She always tried so hard.  She did not deserve the screeching reminder of her station, the banishment back to the dinner preparations.

Nevermind any of that, now, your father was home and he was yelling.

There was never any violence.  You wondered if maybe that just made it worse.

Isamu’s name hung in the air like a curse, like a rope, like something you were expected to climb over yet were never, ever supposed to.  His name was like a cudgel, but in a way yours could never hope to be.  A weapon that would never be used against your dear sweet little brother, you supposed.

_ Tell me why you can’t just be better. _

You couldn’t.  An accident of birth, genetics, whatever the real answer was, you didn’t have it.  You were the elder, you were supposed to be superior, but spaceships were falling from the sky and the country was dying and the government was gone and nothing was really how it was supposed to be anymore.

You retreated back into your head, a tiny corner of sound where Azumi’s voice kept repeating, over and over, “ _ We’ll get through this, you and I.  I promise.” _

* * *

You came to in the back of a taxi cab, and swallowed heavily past the lump in your throat.

God _ dammit  _ you really were becoming Sigmund Freud’s darkest fantasy, weren’t you.

“You finally up, Sleeping Beauty?” the cabbie drawled from the front seat, and you were very suddenly aware that the car was not, in fact, moving.

“I’ll kill you.”

“Uh-huh.  Unfortunately for you, this looks like it’s gonna be the end of the line.”

You sat up slowly, far too groggy to worry about how ominous those words sounded.  After a few seconds of oblivious silence, the driver  _ tsk _ ed loudly and gestured out the window.  You turned to look, and were greeted with snow falling so thick and fast that it was starting to accumulate as you watched it.  It had piled up in impossibly high drifts along the side of the road, and as you stared you saw it growing taller and taller, a white mass completely covering the world in all directions.  It must have been a foot and a half of pure white Satanic slush. 

“Oh.”

“Yeah.  Oh.”  The cabbie (an Amanto with no visible mouth or nose under the long, shag-carpeting-esque hair covering his whole body, yet still speaking as clearly as if he was standing in front of you) jammed some buttons on the meter, and shifted the car into park.  “You’ll have to walk.  That’ll be 27,725 yen,  _ please. _ ”

A tiny, tiny part of you died just a little bit as you handed over the wad of bills, nearly ¾ of what you had earned at the cabaret club.  The cabbie grunted in what you assumed was satisfaction, flipping through the bills with thick, hairy fingers.  Heaving a deep sigh, you shouldered open the back door of the cab, and were met with a gust of cold air so fierce you almost tumbled right back into it.

“Nooooooo,” you whimpered, long and quiet, as you watched the wind whip the snowflakes around in the air.  

“Please get out of my cab,” the cabbie sighed, casting you a long-suffering glance.

“I’ll  _ die. _ ”

“I don’t care.”

Hm.  Reminded you of a certain silver-haired bastard asshole someone.

You stepped out tentatively, definitely  _ not  _ dressed for this sort of weather, and before you could even fully adjust to the situation, the car was thrown in reverse and violently whipped around.  As it started to speed back the way it had come, tires spinning in the quickly accumulating slush, the cabbie yelled out the driver’s side window, “It’s about 104 km to Yuzawa.  Good luck, kid.”

Your scream of frustration and anger was lost in the revving of the engine, and the cab was soon lost in the encroaching darkness.  

“Perfect,” you said, kicking a snowbank wildly.  “Perfect!  I love being stranded in a snowy wasteland!  It’s my  _ favorite _ !  Hope you’re laughing, whoever the hell is up there because you sure did screw me over this time – ” You spent a minute or two kicking around at various chunks of ice and slush, trying your best to exercise your frustration in a way that wasn’t just lying down and waiting for the cold to kill you.  “Okay!  Okay.  We’re fine, we’re  _ fine,  _ just need to get to Yuzawa maybe find a horse along the way who knows I don’t know –”

God.  104 km.  That was . . . maybe a day of walking?  You had never been that good at math, admittedly.  Your foot scuffed at the asphalt of the road, and you took a deep breath, the cold air stinging as it went down.  Well.  Nothing for it except to keep moving, you supposed.

And so you did.

In hindsight, you wished you had actually packed some decently warm clothes, but hey, not like it was the middle of winter, or January, or right after New Year’s, or anything – you were really starting to think you were irreparably stupid.  You wrapped your arms around yourself, squeezing tight, and leaned further into the opposing wind, head down.  You watched your feet shlup through the snow, saw rather than felt the water seep through your clothes up to your knees.  Oh, good.  You were already going numb.  

You stopped for a brief moment, shook your legs vigorously, and raised your head, squinting around for any sort of landmark that could tell you where you were.  The blizzard had only gotten worse as you had walked.  As it was, you could barely see ten feet in front of you.  Conveniently within that ten feet, though, was a wooden signpost, sticking crookedly out of the ground, with a single wooden arrow attached to it.  You trudged closer, shivering violently as a particularly harsh gust of wind blew right through you.  

Teeth chattering, you made out the words “Fujioka, 2 km.”  

Good, great, wonderful, now all you had to do was survive another two kilometers and then you could collapse in a rickshaw hotel with straw bedding and probably be  _ eaten  _ to death by bedbugs before you ever saw the light of day again – 

Oh, this trip was for sure, definitely, 100% a wonderful idea.

* * *

Your feelings about Fujioka were much the same as they had been about Edo, upon first visit.

It sucked.

You hated it.

And given that you didn’t have the energy to give it a chance to  _ not  _ suck, your opinion was pretty firm.

Dawn was just starting to break (you were pretty sure) as you trudged into the outskirts of town, all four limbs entirely numb, and the rest of you not far behind.  You really honest to god hoped you didn’t have frostbite.  You would hate to arrive to this hopefully-extremely-well-paying-job with a few less toes.

You made your way through the center of town, the wind howling so deafeningly in your ears that after a bit it was like you weren’t hearing anything at all.  You took a pit stop against the nearest building, squinting at the sky for any sign of a sunrise, any sign of a sky at all, actually.  Snow got a bit depressing after a while.  

Well, lanterns were starting to be lit around you, and you could hear someone shuffling around on the other side of the door you discovered you had been leaning against, so you supposed that was a good sign.

About 10 minutes into your visit and you had already succeeded at giving one of the Fujioka citizens a near heart attack, as she found you sopping wet, shivering, and miserable, inches from her front door.

“Hello,” you said, as she screamed.  “Do you know where I could rent a horse?”

“Wh –,” she stammered, stumbling backwards.

“Oh, sorry, you probably couldn’t hear me over your screaming.”  You shook some excess snow off of one of your shoes.  “Do you know where I could rent a horse?  And maybe also buy some boots and a coat.  That’d be swell.”

“Um –,” she gave you a once-over, and tentatively stepped back into the doorway, hand gripping the frame.  “Are you . . . not from around here?”

“You could say that,” you said, giving your thoroughly drenched hair a shake.  “I took a taxi in from Edo.”

“Edo?” she said breathlessly, eyes going wide.

“Mhm.”  You rubbed your arms, willing your teeth to quit chattering.  “He had to drop me off earlier than planned.  In truth, I was not expecting this much snow.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, and did not move.  You huffed out a breath, considered the pros and cons of being snippish with a woman who looked to be in her 50s, and glanced around the porch to either side of you.

“Listen, I’m gonna be blunt for a second,” you said, and she looked as if you had just told her your plan to stab her to death.  “I’m very cold.  In fact the world, at the moment, is very cold and snowy and generally not fun.  If you’re not going to be all hospitable and welcome me in for like, fifteen minutes to dry off, then could you at least tell me where to get a horse and some goddamn boots?  Please?”

She looked like you had frozen her in place, and then her brows furrowed, eyes scanning the ground around her feet as if she was looking for something.  “Um,” she said again, carefully meeting your eyes.  “I’m sorry . . . your dialect . . . um . . .”

Oh.  Good.   _ Shit. _

You heaved a giant sigh, and gave an exaggerated shiver, clacking your teeth together and waving your arm at the snow whipping around behind you.  “Cold.  Very cold.”

Her eyes lit up in immediate understanding ( _ goddamn finally),  _ and she beckoned you inside with a faint smile.  “Come.  Come in.”

You entered gratefully, shutting the door behind you and nearly collapsing back against it when the heavenly warmth inside assaulted your senses.  The small woman whose name you still had not discerned beckoned you over to the roaring fireplace, and gave you another smile.

You sat down heavily on the floor, every single inch of you dripping, and exhaled so long and so deeply that you wondered if your soul was finally leaving your body for good.  Well, if it did, you would have an excuse not to continue on this damn job.

The small woman bustled away, muttering to herself, and you took a moment to look around.  It was a small house, by all means, but still definitely bigger than the shitty above-bar apartment you had previously been inhabiting.  The walls were a dark, sturdy brown, decorated with a few simple, threadbare scrolls, and even a kabuki mask, leering at you from above the fireplace.  The room was small but not unkind, filled with comfortable looking pillows, all arranged around the hearth, which was scuffed with what must have been decades worth of wear and tear.  Whatever was in the pot bubbling over the crackling flames smelled wonderful, and you let the warmth seep into you as the doors behind you rattled against a gust of wind.

The small woman soon returned with a bowl and spoon, and handed them to you with a quick nod of her head.  

“Thank you,” you said, scooting closer to the pot strung above the fire and fishing a couple ladles of incredibly delicious looking stew out of it.  “Am I really that hard to understand?”  She looked at you for a moment, face screwed up in concentration, and then nodded.  You wanted to bang your head against the ground.

Of all the things you had been expecting to encounter, a goddamn  _ language barrier  _ was not one of them.  Christ, you  _ spoke  _ the same language, but apparently your city-slicker dialect was practically incomprehensible.  You hadn’t even  _ been  _ in the city that long.

“Can I rent a horse?” you asked, and as she pored over your words (after painstakingly deciphering them), you watched the crow’s feet at the corner of her eyes wrinkle and bend, shift under a stray tuft of graying hair.  Her hair was dark, her eyes darker, and your mind had ventured so far off course that you barely caught her reply.

“Yes,” she said as you shoved stew that you couldn’t even taste into your mouth.  “Yes.  Down the road.  You’ll see it.”

Perhaps it was because your brain had finally reached the temperature for optimal operation, or maybe it was the stew filling your empty stomach, or maybe it was none of those things at all, but you finally realized that such kindness from a total, utter stranger was definitely . . . unusual. Suddenly tensing, you wondered if you should even be in this house at all.

The woman only cocked her head at you.

“Hey, uh . . .,” you said, setting the bowl down gently (and simultaneously wondering if you had just been poisoned god you were such an  _ idiot) _ .  “Why are you helping me?”

All of a sudden, she looked very sad, and you regretted every bad thought you had had about her.  She took a seat beside you, knees tucked up under herself, and smoothed her fingers over the wrinkles it had created in the front of her kimono.  She looked at you, eyes soft, and it sent a pang through you like she had actually poisoned you after all.

“My name is Hiroko,” she said, and you were about to ask if she had understood the question when she waved a hand in the direction of a small picture frame sitting alone atop the mantle.  It was the only piece of personal decoration you had seen.  Within the frame, neatly cropped by the smooth wooden edges, was a picture of a woman who looked remarkably like you.  She was smiling.  

“Where is she now?” you asked, although the answer seemed clear, a single picture frame sitting dead center on an otherwise empty mantle.

Hiroko patted your knee, thumb smoothing over a crease in your clothing.  “Winters here are very hard.  Wars are harder.”

* * *

_ Nasturtiums have such a horrible name,  _ you thought.  You had been thinking about a lot of things.   _ Such pretty little flowers.  They don’t deserve it. _ Flowers were just next on the list, it seemed.  It was almost cruel, to be thinking of tiny red and orange petals bursting up through green leaves, as snow piled up around you and the cold became your whole world.

You had brought a bunch of them back to Gintoki’s, once.  A cluster of seven pretty little orange nasturtiums clutched in your hands, and Gintoki had accosted you at the door as if he had known you were coming in with something he wasn’t going to like.

“Tell me those aren’t flowers,” he had said as you slipped off your shoes.

“I would, but then I would be a liar.”  You shuffled them in your grip, rotating your hands to admire them from multiple angles.  “Aren’t they cute?  They remind me of Kagura’s hair.”

“ _ Why _ did you buy them?”

“I just  _ said  _ why, old man, get your damn hearing checked.”

“Oh, god, you were duped by a salesman, weren’t you.  He shoved them on you before your idiotic face could say no.  Haven’t I taught you  _ anything – _ ”

“Okay, I don’t appreciate your tone, but also you’re not wrong.”

The ensuing argument had been decided, ultimately, when the flowers had been placed into a makeshift coffee-mug-vase on the living room table, and had stayed there for the rest of the week.

You smiled softly to yourself, urging your borrowed horse through a particularly thick drift of snow.  You weren’t actually sure how long you had been riding for.  At the rate this poor beast was hobbling along, you were probably better off on foot, but who were you to refuse a chance to rest?

“Sorry about this, you old curmudgeon,” you said, patting the thing on the side of its neck.  It huffed, almost as if in response, and you laughed so hard that the sound rang around you, echoing from every direction.

You wondered if you were going to die up here.

* * *

The damn sheets smelled like sakura petals.  Not even the all-natural kind, the one you could get by literally just opening a window at any point from March to June.  No no,  _ this  _ sakura smell was the kind of manufactured, factory-approved fake cherry  _ nonsense  _ that could only be purchased by someone who was absolutely crazy – 

In short, this was all your fault.

He had been fine with the dirt cheap detergent.  Everyone had been fine with the dirt cheap detergent. So what if it sometimes made a sheet come out of the wash stained an embarrassing splotchy blue, it made things smell  _ clean,  _ which they almost never actually were, and  _ dammit  _ if the members of this household weren’t subterfuge experts at the core.

He should  _ never  _ have let you go the store, going to the store was Shinpachi’s lot in life, grocery shopping was what the damn kid was born for.

And when you had come back with the pink box that was honest to god an insult to life itself, and told him you  _ did not like  _ (of all the things!) the clean laundry smell and instead preferred that factory  _ nonsense  _ all it did was remind him how much – remind him of how – 

How the tiny petals had collected in little soggy clumps at the lakeshore, pushed there by the gently rolling waves, how they dug themselves into the sand as you stood there, inhaling like it was the first time you had ever breathed at all.  How you looked at him and smiled like a giddy child, and the sun was setting and  _ Gin they said there’re gonna be fireworks – _

Gintoki squeezed his eyes shut, and pretended like he was going to be getting back to sleep anytime soon.

* * *

You hadn’t been eating much.  Hadn’t been sleeping much, except maybe if the uncountable hours you spent mentally drifting away counted.  Honestly, it was a miracle that after riding for 10 or more hours each day, your legs still had the strength to hold you up as you made camp each night.

In short, it sucked.  Now you understood why even the rogue samurai traveled in groups.  You would kill for someone to talk to besides Beetle.

You weren’t really sure why you had decided to name a horse you were only borrowing, and why you had decided to name it after a bug, of all things.  Maybe it was because of the – 

Nope, actually, you were pretty sure it was just the easiest collection of syllables for your exhaustion-riddled brain to remember and produce.

Each night was the same.  A couple strips of beef jerky, boiled water that still stung on its way down, a patch of snow kicked aside for Beetle to graze on the sparse grass underneath.  Barely managing to stay awake long enough to swallow your meager dinner, and then an indeterminable amount of hours spent tossing and turning and dreaming and remembering tiny, incoherent things, and maybe sleeping somewhere in there.

You shouldn’t have said those things to him.  He was mean and nasty and rude but he had already filled his quota for hurting.  He didn’t deserve it, not really, even though you couldn’t quite convince yourself of it.

Speaking of deserve, you most definitely deserved this.  Not just for Gintoki, Shinpachi, Kagura, not just for Otose and Tama and Sacchan-san and Katsura – but for Azumi, too, for the burnt-down remnants of a house that you definitely couldn’t return to now.

_ That’s enough now,  _ you thought, turning over in your bedroll.  But when was it ever, really?

* * *

_ “What do you mean, you don’t like your name?” _

_ “I never said that.  I just don’t . . . prefer it.  Which is why it doesn’t matter if you can never remember it – you’re a horrible person, by the way – just call me whatever you want.” _

_ “But what about your damn parents?  They’ve gotta care, asshat.” _

_ “Sorry, you’ve reached your daily limit for personal questions.  Please come back tomorrow.  Or, preferably, never.” _

_ “You’re impossible, and that’s coming from me.” _

_ The scene disappeared, muddy, swirling colors, probably a skirmish or two, and a couple of weeks had definitely passed when – _

_ “They only ever said it when they were yelling at me.” _

_ “Hm?” The fire was crackling at his feet, whetstone pausing in the middle of his sword. _

_ “It’s nothing.  Forget I said anything.” _

_ “Whatever,” he snorted.  “I yell at you all the time.  So does everyone else.” _

_ “I know,” you said, and you smiled, and he looked away. _

* * *

He woke up sweating, pulse pounding, mouth dry with words he had tried and failed to say.

He hated this.  He hated these dreams.  He hated these memories.  He hated that it had been nearly a week and a half.  He hated you.

(No, he didn’t.)

Shinpachi had stopped asking if he was okay, and was maybe just starting to look the tiniest bit resigned.

* * *

It had stopped snowing.  The land had grown rockier, steeper, but Beetle was still trudging along as dutifully as ever.  As the altitude rose around you, you could have sworn the old thing almost had a spring in his step.

The sound of running water filtered towards you, through boughs and boughs full of damp snow.

Not far now.

* * *

_ “God, Gintoki, do  _ not  _ poke me there I swear to god –”  _

_ “Hm?  Sorry?  Couldn’t hear you over the sound of a crybaby.” _

_ “Listen I know you’re bored but –,” you made a horrible face, all scrunched up nose and furrowed brow, and emitted a laugh that sounded more like you were choking.  With a screech of fury you were bowling him over, foot in his stomach and hand pulling brutally at the silver mop he dared to call a head.  “Who tickles people on their neck, huh?!  How was I even supposed to know I was ticklish, huh?!  Give me back my innocence you half-baked porn star understudy –”  You rolled in increasingly-violent somersaults, pinching and pulling and kicking at any part of him you could reach.  “You’re an animal!  I hate you!” _

_ “ _ I’m  _ an animal – you low-budget straight-to-DVD TV-movie PREQUEL –” _

Gintoki opened his eyes, and couldn’t even find the energy to be properly irritated.  This dream, by far, was on Katsura levels of idiotic.  All because of that  _ stupid  _ spot on your neck, just behind the jugular vein and where your jaw sloped upwards – he wondered what you would do if he tickled you like that, right now, wherever the hell you were.  

Would your face scrunch up like a puppy, would you laugh like a stupid low-budget cartoon character and bowl him over so suddenly that all of the wind would get knocked out of him?  

Or maybe you wouldn’t even let him get near you at all.

* * *

The lunch Gintoki had dropped on your head sat unopened.  You stared at it, and wondered if you really would rather starve.  It had been almost a week – no doubt it was moldy and all sorts of disgusting by now.  You weren’t even sure why you were bothering to open it, why you were even bothering to untie the blue handkerchief and pop open the lid.  Maybe it was because you would feel bad if Shinpachi’s hard-earned effort went to waste.  Maybe you wanted to see if it was even food at all.

Four little onigiri greeted you, still white and pristine, wrapped in nori so delicately that it almost didn’t look real.  Snowflakes fell and perched on the pale rice as you sat and stared at them like an idiot, too focused even to shiver as a breath of wind passed through.  You picked one of the carefully rounded triangles up, felt the rice give and stick to your fingers almost like it was still fresh, and took a bite.  The sour salty tang of pickled plum filled your mouth, and of course the blizzard conditions had kept them perfectly refrigerated – and you did not remember the last time someone had made something for you with so much care.

You sat there, in the cold wet snow, and you cried and cried and cried.

* * *

It was, most likely, the crash of the hotel signpost hitting the frozen snow, buckling under the weight of your flailing, near-comatose body, that drew the innkeep from their desk in the front.  Nevertheless, as you spat ice and snow and maybe a tooth from your mouth, with Beetle snuffling behind you and a shocked gasp coming from above you, you kinda thought it was divine.  Maybe.

Or maybe not, as the pain in your – well, everywhere – continued and unfortunately your consciousness wasn’t growing any dimmer, and with a groan that could wake the dead you hauled yourself to your feet.

“Who are you?” the innkeeper asked, voice tight and firm, and you held up a hand while you collected yourself.

“Hello,” you said, finally having the strength to look up.  It was an older woman, silver hair tied up in a big, tight bun, a few loose strands wisping around a long, stern-looking face.  Her knotted, worn hands were clasped in front of her, almost as if she was trying to restrain herself from batting you away.  “I’m supposed to meet some Tenketsu person.  Or his servant, I guess.  Did he give me his name?  I don’t remember.”

“ _ You’re  _ the one Chiketsu-san sent for?” the innkeeper said, her eyes traveling up and down your sweat-stained, snow-caked, maybe a little bloodied form.

“Unless those waterfalls I heard a mile back was just all the snow melting out of my ass, then yes.”  The innkeeper snorted, and almost looked like she was angry at herself for doing it.  “Can I come inside now?  Please?  I feel like I’ve died already.  Also please take care of my horse he’s been really great and he didn’t deserve any of this.”

The innkeeper only hummed, and gestured for you to come inside.  “I’ve been instructed to let you rest for the evening.  Chiketsu-san will collect you in the morning,” she said as she beckoned you over the threshold, but you couldn’t hear her over the sound of you falling face first onto the floor.  “Are you quite alright?” she asked, and you irritably reflected how that was definitely not the tone of voice to use on someone who might have just died on your doorstep.

“Absolutely not,” you groaned, trying to get your arms under yourself so you could push into a slightly more respectable position.  “I can’t feel my anything.”

_ You’re embarrassing yourself,  _ Gintoki’s sardonic voice echoed in the back of your head, and you wanted to vomit.

“Well, get up,” the innkeeper said, entirely unconcerned with the fact that you were pretty sure you were dying.

“I am trying,” you said.  “Very hard.”  It didn’t much help that the image of Gintoki rolling his eyes at you was hovering behind your eyelids every time you blinked.  

By the time you managed to force yourself to your feet the innkeeper was already disappearing down the hall, and you clumsily collected your rucksack from where it had been tossed to the floor.  “Are you coming?” her voice drifted towards you, and you stumbled after the sound of it, gasping for breath in definitely-unhealthy body-wracking heaves.  You still couldn’t feel any of your toes.  “Here you are,” the innkeeper said as you rounded the corner, her arm gesturing in an almost gentle way to a door on your immediate right.  Her eyes looked you up and down again, every single frostbitten, dripping wet inch, your face tight with pain and exhaustion and a million other things you no longer knew how to feel.  “You may call me Kazuko.”

“Oh, may I?” you mocked, although it had no bite.  You moved past her, and stood completely still in the center of the room as Kazuko closed the door behind you.  Her soft footsteps receded into the distance, and eventually faded into the quiet howl of the wind outside.  

You knelt, and untied your boots, one after the other.  You kicked them into some unseen corner, placed both hands to your chest, right over your heart, and sighed.  The ever trustworthy organ thumped back in response, an irregular, fast-paced rhythm that you knew would not be calming down anytime soon.  

You collapsed onto the futon neatly unfolded beneath you, felt your hair sticking to your face, felt your damp clothes sticking to your skin, felt your whole bleak future yawning out in front of you.  And before you finally, blissfully lost consciousness, you felt the horrible, swooping realization that you were entirely, one hundred percent alone.

Part of you hated it, and a much larger, older part of you hated that you did.  Wasn’t this what you had always wanted, after all?  A life to yourself, no ties to anything, free to do as you pleased?

You weren’t sure what you wanted anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey there wow can't believe i've managed to write 50,000 words of this. that's half of nanowrimo right there. 
> 
> speaking of, chapters should hopefully be coming more frequently, since college life has finally kinda settled down, but i also realize that every time i've said that before has been a lie. i hope you enjoyed this, at least! i have the beginnings of chapter 9 sketched out and i have a loose idea of where i want the rest of this arc to go but uh. when i mean slow burn i really mean it.
> 
> anyhow, thanks so much for your continuing support, and see you all soon! <3


	9. You Know When People Are Idiots?  Yeah.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhh...bbh...fjhghd...........life..hard. college...hard. relationships.......................hard
> 
> but i finished this. it almost killed me but i did it. i will throttle sakata gintoki himself if i have to to finish this gotdamn thing

You did not wake up the next morning, but you dreamed.  The soft ringing of a telephone, cutting through the haze, a clipped, formal voice answering, “No.  She is quite ill.  A single day of recovery is needed.”  Silence, light filtering in, a sharp sigh, “I am aware.  If you could see her, you would understand.  If you take her out there, she will die.”  Silence, again, the distant memory of scratchy silver hair and your hand wrapped around a wrist with a thin, tiny scar right beneath the palm, and then, “Thank you.  That will be all.”  The sound of a receiver being clicked into place, and then nothing.

You did not wake up that morning, and certainly not the next.

* * *

_ “Touya-nee!  Touya-nee!” _

_ “Oh my god, what?  Why are you saying it like that?” _

_ Kagura rolled her eyes, as if the question was idiotic.  “I’m trying to write a Christmas card for Gin-chan, and I can’t decide what to say.” _

_ “Why do you think I would be any use for this?” you asked, eyebrows raised. _

_ She rolled her eyes again, and pursed her lips.  “Because he’s  _ family!   _ What do you say to family?” _

_ “Uh . . . that you promise not to kill them until you really need the life insurance money?” _

_ “No,” she said, not half as indignant as she should have been.  “You’re supposed to say –”  And suddenly blue eyes muddled to brown, orange hair flowed down, down, down in a river of inky dark black, framing a face that was her and wasn’t, a face so familiar that you nearly sobbed out the word –  _

_ “You’re supposed to say ‘I love you,’” Azumi said, and smiled, and you cracked open like a vase. _

* * *

“Please don’t tell me you’re dead.”

A groan rolled from your throat, utterly devoid of any sort of intelligible meaning.  You couldn’t feel any single part of your body.  You didn’t even really know where you were.

“Well, words would have been nice, but I suppose the answer is the same.”

Your eyes cracked open, even though you couldn’t even really remember wanting them to.  The cold blue light filtering into the room almost made you squeeze them shut again, if it weren’t for the figure leaning over you, hair bun so tight it didn’t even bounce as they cocked their head.

“I am not your mother, you know.”

Realization flooded into you so fast that every molecule in your body screamed.  You rolled over, and your ribs and lungs and abdomen and chest and  _ everything  _ just  _ burned.   _ You would have vomited if there had been anything left in your stomach.

“You’ve kept your employer waiting,” Kazuko said, the name trickling down into conscious thought like water through a sieve. 

Oh.  You looked over your shoulder at her, vision hazy and wobbly and you had to fight not to just shut your eyes again.  You weren’t even sure you remembered how to speak.

“It’s fine.  I told him you were dying.”  You propped yourself up on an elbow, and rolled your eyes.  The action sent pain like an ice pick stabbing through your skull, but Kazuko stifled a snort.  “Not too far off.”  You were pretty sure she was studying you, but your vision wouldn’t clear no matter how many times you blinked.  All of a sudden, standing up swiftly, she was gone, leaving nothing but the parting words, “You should almost definitely be getting up soon.”

You licked your lips, ran your tongue over the ridges of your teeth, cleared your throat, ever so quietly.  Tried to ignore the fact that it felt like you were trying to cough up glass.  “Okay,” you said, and it didn’t sound like you at all.

Your damn employer was definitely waiting for you, but you were too busy trying to ascertain where each of your limbs were, and how to move them.  You didn’t even really feel like you were alive.

You got your arms under yourself and reared up into a sitting position, and it was like being wrapped in a cotton bubble and watching from a distance as the world spun around you.  It felt like your brain was trying to turn itself inside out.

4am drill marches stomped towards you, the sound of boots hitting the cold dewy ground echoing as if they were marching circles around your head.  The captain’s voice, loud in your ear, initial fear fading to the soul-dredging desire to go back to sleep, or maybe just lie down on the ground and die.

_ You’re so dramatic,  _ Gintoki said, but he wasn’t here, the room was empty and soundless and it was just you and the memory of a large warm hand wrapped around your elbow and hauling you off the ground before the captain could see and a voice snapping something at you in a hushed whisper that was far too exhausted to be anywhere close to mean —

_ Someday I’ll be picking  _ you  _ out of the mud, asshole,  _ you had said, and you hauled yourself to your feet just so the wave of dizziness would wash every single thought away.

You were suddenly overcome with how absolutely disgusting every single inch of your skin felt, and were out of all your clothes so fast you didn’t even really remember taking them off in the first place.  You had only one set of extras, crumpled in a wrinkly heap in the bottom of your rucksack, and you probably spent a good 10 minutes wrestling them onto your body as if they were actually fighting against you.  

You did not have a mirror in the room, and didn’t even know where to find one, but you knew everything about you was crooked.  Everything  _ felt  _ crooked.

You were glad there wasn’t a mirror.  You didn’t want to see what you looked like.

* * *

Chiketsu arrived two hours later, dusted in snow and looking simultaneously nothing and everything like you had imagined.  He had the pinched, stern face of a high-ranking servant, and the long, spindly fingers to match, while only managing to be just a little over five feet tall.  By that time you had forced some porridge into your stomach, and done your best to look halfway presentable and also not like you were dying.  Admittedly, how you looked at the moment was not very convincing of this fact.  

“You look terrible,” Chiketsu said, which, at least, allowed you to confirm what you had already assumed.

You only shrugged.  “Two weeks of riding through a blizzard will do that to you.”  You were frankly impressed that you had been able to manage an entire sentence out of the shredded-glass-canyon your throat had become.

Chiketsu sniffed.  “Well, I’m glad your sense of sarcasm managed to remain intact.”  You only grinned back at him, and all 60 and a half inches of him bristled.  “Well, hurry up, won’t you?  You’ve already kept me waiting for two whole days.”  

“Please tell me it’s not snowing,” you said, already starting to seize up at the memory of all that goddamn cold.  You still were not even close to being properly dressed for this weather.  Chiketsu only rolled his eyes, and strode out the sliding doors, not bothering to close them behind him.  The blast of cold curled into you with ice-shard nails, and you were about to forego this whole employment opportunity entirely when you felt something warm and a little prickly being shoved into the small of your back.

“You’re an idiot,” Kazuko snapped, as you scrambled to keep whatever it was from falling to the floor.  Before you could even form a single word, she had already disappeared into the room behind the reception desk, and you looked to find a large, fur-lined overcoat spilling from your hands.

It was not exactly the prettiest, or the nicest-smelling coat you had ever worn (you really hoped that was just old-fur-musk and not something worse), but when you finally stepped outside, the cold really didn’t seem so bad after all.  It was like a kimono, you supposed, except infinitely more prickly.  

“Are you  _ finally  _ ready?” Chiketsu asked, leading what you assumed to be his horse and Beetle, the precious old beast, by the reins.  “We are on a schedule, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you sighed, trying desperately to not think about how the last time you had swung up onto Beetle like this you had only been about 15% alive.  “Lead the way, why don’t you?”

“Well, while we’re on our way,” Chiketsu said, as you tried to block out the all-too-familiar sound of Beetle’s hooves breaking through the top crust of the snow coating the ground, “there are, of course, things I must brief you on.”

You only hummed.  You were already starting to fade out of your own head.

* * *

“Kagura, this show is the worst thing I’ve ever seen, and I’m saying that with complete honesty and also the knowledge that I have, on multiple occasions, seen Kondou entirely naked.”

“Awwww, come on, Gin-chan,” Kagura whined from where she was perched cross-legged in front of the TV set, with utter, almost scary focus.  “It’s not that bad.  It’s called a  _ drama  _ for a reason.”

“It’s not so much dramatic as it is entirely stupid,” he snorted.  “Like okay –,” he gestured vaguely to the woman on the screen, hair whipping dramatically in a fabricated breeze as a reel of flashbacks played at 50% opacity behind her, “ – she has  _ no  _ good reason to be mad at her weird boyfriend.  He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Gin-chan,” Kagura said with a frighteningly serious tone, “he did  _ so  _ many things wrong.”

“Like what?” He waved his hand in the air dismissively.  “All this crap about ‘he never told me he loved me,’ of course he did.  Any moron could see it.  He just didn’t say it.”

“I thought you were reading _ Jump, _ ” Shinpachi muttered from behind him, to which Gintoki, of course, did not reply.  

Kagura sighed loudly, dramatically, and all too like the character on screen, and a vein in Gintoki’s forehead twitched.  “Gin-chan, you do actually have to  _ say things  _ sometimes.”

“What?”

“Sometimes people don’t know.”  

“ _ You  _ know, you idiot, and I really can’t believe you just made me admit that, forget I said anything before I have to give you a serious concussion –”

Kagura turned to look at him fully, blue eyes wide and serious and containing some sort of message he couldn’t begin to decode.  “Sometimes  _ other people _ don’t know.  They just want to hear you say it.  Even if they  _ do  _ know, it’s still nice to hear.  Sometimes you have to tell people you care about them, Gin-chan.”  All he could do was stare incomprehensibly, a warm sort of irritating, itchy flush creeping up his neck that he was actively trying to fight down.  “At least, that’s what the people in this drama always say.  I don’t know.”

He barely heard her, but aggressively hated the fact he knew exactly what she was talking about.  He spent the rest of the night heatedly arguing with her about pointless things, and neither of them noticed when Shinpachi threw his hands up in frustration and promptly went home.

He didn’t even really remember how many weeks it had been since she left.

* * *

“Hey.”

“Oh my god,  _ what.” _

_ “ _ Is there a payphone up in this wasteland?”

Chiketsu looked at you like you were crazy.  “Out of all the asinine questions you’ve been hounding me with for the past hour and a half, a  _ payphone  _ is something you desperately need to know the whereabouts of?”

You grinned impishly.  “They aren’t asinine to me.  They make me feel better.”

The look he gave you was so uncomfortably familiar, even on an entirely different face, that it sent a cold shiver pricking down your spine.

You wondered what Gintoki would think about all of this.

The urge to shake your head like a wet dog was hard to resist.

_ You’re better off this way you fool and don’t you forget it.  _

“Hey.  Pay attention,” Chiketsu snapped.  “You asked about a payphone, didn’t you?  We passed it about an hour back.  It’s approximately a half an hour ride from your lodging.”  You blinked.  You didn’t remember that.  In all honesty, you had probably been thinking about how much you wanted to lie down in the snow and die.  “Also, we’re almost there.  You can hear the waterfalls to your left.”

He was right.  Above the wind whistling past your ears, you could hear the loud, steady rush of water.  You were honestly surprised the falls weren’t entirely frozen.  

“Fancy,” you said, and you didn’t have to look to know Chiketsu was rolling his eyes.

“I hope you’ve been paying attention,” he yelled over a sudden breeze.  “This will be the last time I escort you.”

“When I inevitably fall off this stupid mountain, I’ll make sure to haunt your boss and tell him it was your fault.”

“You will do no such thing,” he scoffed, and all of a sudden the mist that had been slowly been surrounding you for miles stepped it up a notch.  “Stay close,” he warned.  “It’d be annoying if you actually fell off.”

The castle must be close.  Chiketsu had turned into a dim blob in front of you, and the landscape around you had faded to everything within a two-foot radius.  It was eerily, eerily quiet, like giant hands had descended over your ears.  You didn’t even dare to speak.  You weren’t sure if you could.

What time even was it?

Ah, you could barely see Chiketsu.  Just a distant, dark shape, wavering and swirling with a wind current you couldn’t feel.  Even the tip of Beetle’s ears, bobbing just a few feet from your face, were starting to become hazy.  This was the worst.

Actually, you decided the worst part about this fog wasn’t that you couldn’t see, it was that it allowed you to think.  It allowed you to remember the last three weeks, atop Beetle’s back, unable to see, praying to whoever was listening that you were still following the road.  It made you remember the stench, of sweat and damp clothing and bile, all trapped in the scarf wrapped around your mouth.  It made you remember the stinging of the wind on your cheeks, harsh as an open-palm slap; your cracked, raw, bleeding hands, still numb and stinging despite the too-small gloves you had put over them – 

And it was  _ still  _ blisteringly cold, except now it was little semi-frozen particles of fog landing on your face and hands and stinging like the lit ends of cigarettes, and you had gotten far too used to feeling like you were on the brink of death.  This  _ sucked.   _ Every single aspect of this sucked, and you just wanted to close your eyes and when you opened them again be back in a room with a warm fire (or at least a goddamn space heater), and maybe a blanket or two and a magazine and a small dinky TV blasting some terrible soap opera with a small orange-haired girl crouched in front of it and a silver asshole spouting nonsense from the opposite couch – 

Oh, fuck.

This  _ really  _ sucked.

Before you could stew further, or properly prepare your poor irises, a beam of sunlight struck through the fog.  You winced, shielded your face with a hand, and were not prepared for what you saw when you removed it.

A magnificent castle – even by your pessimistic standards – perched on the side of the mountain, bathed in fog and sparkling winter sunshine.  The stark stone base was ringed with the bare skeletons of what were probably cherry trees, gnarly brown branches clacking and swaying in the rush of air.  The gables cut into the sky like inky black brush strokes, swooping and curling and meeting together once more in a fashion that didn’t exactly line up with the whole “hidden castle deep in the mountains you have to ride two weeks from the nearest civilization to get to” impression you had been expecting.  It was just as, if not more, extravagant than the imposing keeps and pagodas that littered Kyoto’s streets, and you were really beginning to question the disconnect between “we must hide in the mountains” and “hi, we also have a lot of money.”

Chiketsu was a good distance in front of you at this point, and you didn’t have to look at the angry expression on his face to know that it was there.  You had to mentally debate whether or not to urge Beetle forward or just turn around again, but in the end money won out over sense.  As it always does.  

You didn’t know what awaited you in the monstrous structure that kept growing impossibly larger the closer you rode, but you had the distinct impression you would very soon be embarrassing yourself somehow.  When was the last time you had met someone who even came close to the rank of this castle’s master?  The answer was never.  Why were you nervous?  You shouldn’t be nervous.  It was most likely just some stuck-up old paranoid shithead and there wouldn’t be any real danger at all nope none this would be an easy job – 

“Are you planning to ride your horse  _ directly  _ into the front gates, or were you hoping to get off?”

“Riding your horse into a gate is  _ in vogue,  _ you back-country asshole, but I wouldn’t expect you to know that,” you snapped, before vaulting off of Beetle with far too much force.  “Now are you gonna take me to your stupid boss or am I gonna have to walk in there myself?”

“Nonsense,” Chiketsu sniffed, vaulting off his steed in a manner so graceful it made you wanna punch him.  “You wouldn’t get three paces inside the inner gate before you were speared within an inch of your life.”

“ _ Three paces inside the inner gate . . .,” _ you mocked in horrible high-pitched sing-song as Chiketsu rapped on the wooden outer gate with a heavily gloved hand.  With barely a moment’s pause, you heard the loud screech of gears grinding, and the horribly cliché groaning of old wood as the outer gates swung open on hinges rusty from disuse.

A drawn, incredibly-tired looking guard in what must have been an antique samurai helmet that wasn’t even strapped to his chin peeked out as the gates rumbled to a stop, scanning over Chiketsu and you with a gaze that could only be described as lazy.  “This the one you hired, Ketsu?” he asked, scratching at the side of his face.  His helmet was wobbling dangerously off-kilter.

Chiketsu nodded as he forced the reins of his horse into the guard’s hands.  “Obviously.”

“What, you just let anyone in if they knock?” you joked as you handed Beetle over, and the guard only leveled you a blank stare.  

“No one ever comes up here, so yes,” he said as he turned away, and you could have sworn Beetle looked back at you with a near baleful expression.

“What kind of security is that?” you yelled after him, and only got Chiketsu’s boot kicking into your shin to get you moving in response.

“We don’t have time for this,” he snapped, as the smaller, inner gate swung inwards as well.  “The lord of this castle runs a tight schedule.”

“Oh, sure, I bet it’s just about as tight as his –”

The sudden, booming noise of a gong being struck interrupted what would have been an absolutely wonderful joke, and Chiketsu turned to you solemnly as if his eardrums  _ weren’t  _ about to rupture.

“Milord is ready to see you now,” he said, making a sweeping gesture towards a flight of wide stone stairs set in the middle of the snow-filled courtyard, climbing upwards towards a pair of gilded wooden doors that were just now being tugged open.  “Please do not keep him waiting.”

Before you could even make a sassy retort he had all but disappeared, leaving only you, the snow drifting endlessly from the sky, and the two shivering guards staring pointedly at you from the top of the stairwell.

With a deep breath, and one last, final curse to the heavens, you ascended the cold stone steps.

* * *

“You look terrible,” the lord of the castle said.

“Thank you.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“I am aware.”

The young bitch sitting on what should have been an adult’s throne narrowed his eyes at you.  “You should have more respect,” he said, resting his cheek on a closed fist.

You shifted your stance, tilting your chin up to survey the room.  You hummed.  “How old are you?”

He visibly stiffened.  “That’s none of your business.”

You hummed again.

He was handsome, you supposed.  Carefully styled long black hair tied back with a stiff white ribbon, sharp blue eyes and an angled face born from very selective breeding.  All of him was draped in expensive silk and saturated color, so much so that you couldn’t really tell where the fabric ended and the kid began.

He  _ was  _ a kid.  Probably only a year or two older than that psychopathic Shinsengumi brat, if that.  You felt like a dinosaur in the face of his transparent expressions and the baby fat on his cheeks.

“ _ You’re  _ the one Chiketsu picked?” he sniffed, examining you with no small amount of disdain.

“Sorta.”  You scuffed the toe of your boot against the shiny wooden floor, but your eyes never left his face.  You saw one of his eyebrows twitch.  “I’m here, at least, and I doubt you could find anyone else crazy enough to get here.”

The lord (prince? king? whoever) sniffed, turning his gaze away from you and drawing a fan from his sleeve to twirl in his fingers.  “That just means they’re weak.”  It sounded strangely rote, like it was something he had carefully memorized, but you weren’t particularly interested in psychoanalyzing a rich idiot.

“Hm, yes, and your fancy clothes and long silky hair are the ultimate indicators of physical strength.”

He shot to his feet, hands curled into fists, at least four separate robes falling away as he visibly restrained himself from stepping any further.  “Have some respect!” he boomed, or tried to, as the shout only echoed a few pitiful, tinny times in the upper rafters.

You had to bite back a grin.  Annoying this lord was proving more fun than you had expected.   “I’m fairly confident in my job security.  Send me back down the mountain if you want, but I know there’s something you need from me.”

His face was starting to turn quite interesting shades of red.  “You  _ will  _ refer to me as Tenketsu-sama.”

“I haven’t really called you anything else, have I?”

“ _ Daiketsu!”  _ Tenketsu snapped, and a burly man in shiny silver armor stepped out of a hidden alcove.

“Are all of you asses or something this is starting to get a little weird —”

“Show this woman out.  I expect you both to be present in the guard tower at noon tomorrow to discuss your job parameters.  Until then, get her out of my sight.”

You whistled amusedly, narrowly avoiding Daiketsu’s big gloved hand as it made to shove at the small of your back.

“See ya tomorrow,  _ Tenketsu-sama,” _ you sang, drawing out the last syllable for an impossibly long time, and his ensuing screech of “Get  _ out —!”  _ was lost in the slamming of the throne room doors behind you.

* * *

It was midnight when the phone rang.  Midnight on a weekend, a Saturday, to be precise.  Normally, at such an hour, the phone would have gone unanswered by both inhabitants of the shitty abode, left to ring itself into silence atop a shitty man’s desk.  Fortunately, for all parties involved, the shitty phone ringing on the shitty dumpster desk was picked up by a shitty man’s harried employee, kept late by destruction of public property paperwork assigned by an equally harried police officer.

“Hello?” he said, with far too much bite, but it was midnight and he had an older sister waiting for him at home who would not hesitate to stomp over and drag him out by the ear.

A sigh came through the line, crackly with the static of a long-range connection.  “Shinpachi,” the person said, all in one relieved breath, and he couldn’t help the smile that broke out over his face.

“Touya-san!”  Somewhere from behind him came the distinct sound of a previously-asleep body falling off of the couch, but he ignored it.  “We were so worried!”

“I’m sure two of you were,” came the dry response, and a sound that could have been more static, or just a wayward hand scratching behind an ear.  “How’s everything been?”

“Oh, nothing new,” Shinpachi said as he brushed the paperwork off to one side, as if the woman on the other end of the line could actually see him.  “It’s been pretty quiet.”

A soft laugh, quickly followed by a not-so-soft cough.  “I find that hard to believe.”

“Are you well, Touya-san?  That cough sounds nasty.”

A faint hum.  “I’ll be fine.  Trekking two and a half weeks through a blizzard takes a toll on you.”

“A blizzard?!” Something behind him clattered to the floor, followed by a muffled string of curses.  “Are you sure you’re okay?!”

“Yes, I’m sure,” she laughed, and he could almost imagine her standing across from him, eyes glittering with some secret only she knew about. 

“How has your job been?” Shinpachi asked, leaning against the desk.

“I just started,” she laughed, “today.  It’s . . . alright, I guess.  A little weird, but that’s nothing new.  My boss is . . . surprisingly young.”

“Oh?  How young?”  When had the TV been turned on?  He could see Gin-san’s slouched form in silhouette, now upright on the couch, leg bouncing to some silent rhythm.

“Younger than I am, that’s for sure.  Weirdly handsome, too.”

“Handsome?” Shinpachi echoed, and something that sounded suspiciously like the remote was chucked onto the coffee table.  The sound of a potato chip bag being loudly opened and eaten out of almost drowned out the reply to his question.

“Mmm, it’s a little weird.  He’s a pretentious ass, truth be told.”  Shinpachi snorted, despite himself.  “I was kinda hoping I would just have to guard a senile old man who only inhabits three rooms of the castle but – well, what can you do.  This dude’s always running around, from the looks of it.”

Shinpachi laughed.  The volume on the TV was subsequently turned up. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“Oh, that reminds me – thank you for the bento, by the way.  It sure did help me not die towards the end of the journey.”

“Bento?” he asked, cocking his head.  “What bento?”

“The one in the blue handkerchief?  The one Gintoki dropped on my head as I was leaving?  You made that, didn’t you?”

Shinpachi shook his head, before realizing of course she couldn’t see him, and blurted, “No, I didn’t.  Someone else must have.”

There was silence for a dreadful few seconds in which he thought maybe the line had disconnected.  And then, coming through so soft he had to strain to hear it, “Oh.  I see.”

“Are you okay, Touya-san?”

An affirmative hum in response.  “Yes, I’m fine.  But it’s late.  I’ll call again soon, okay?”

“O-Okay, but, when –”

“Goodnight, Shinpachi.”

Before he could respond, the line went dead with a faint click.

* * *

You were still holding the phone to your ear, listening to the low hum of the dial tone.  Beetle nickered at you from outside the phone booth, almost as if to tell you to hurry it up, already, but all you did was lean more of your weight against the glass interior.  You were shaking, and probably not just because of the cold anymore.

You thought of the onigiri you had made salty with your tears.  You thought of them all lined up in a perfect little row, rice perfectly white and sticky. You thought of the blue handkerchief, smelling faintly of strawberry milk and dog food and sukonbu.  

You couldn’t puzzle it out.

The phone was roughly shoved back into the receiver, making the inside of the phonebooth ring with the metallic sound, and you didn’t even bother to wrap your scarf back around your neck before stumbling back into the cold.

You couldn’t figure it out.  You couldn’t fathom it.

Beetle made a sound more resembling an overworked pig than a horse as you spurred him down the hill, back towards the dim glow of the hotel shimmering through the snow that was  _ still  _ fucking falling.

Maybe there were a lot of things you just didn’t understand.

Kazuko only looked up for a brief second when you slid the door of the hotel open and stumbled inside.  She looked incredibly bored, leaning against the reception desk and flipping through a magazine.  You had no idea where in a hundred mile radius she could have purchased it.

“You’re back late,” she commented offhandedly, not looking in your direction once as you shook the wayward snowflakes out of your hair.

“What, are you tracking me or something?” you retorted, but it had no bite.  Your voice sounded like it had been half-stolen by the wind rattling the windows.

Kazuko hummed, with no obvious intonation to suggest a confirmation or a denial, but you were far too tired to even feel annoyed.  You were sopping wet, from sweat and snow and god knows what else, and your hands were  _ still  _ shaking, and you just wanted to go to bed and erase this entire day.  Maybe if you slept hard enough you would dream you were somewhere else.

“You know,” Kazuko said as you were just about to disappear off towards your room, hand resting heavily on the wall, “the payphone doesn’t have a very good connection.”

You snorted.  Of course she was the kind of hotel manager who somehow knew absolutely everything.  When wasn’t your life a bad daytime television drama, again?

“That’s fine,” you said.  “That way when I hang up I can just blame it on a bad connection.”

She sighed.  The magazine flopped closed with a papery flutter.  “I don’t feel like you’re going to be doing much hanging up.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” It really was incredible how quickly your energy came back the moment you were irritated.

“You really do have the stupidity of someone horribly in love, it’s sickening.”

“Wh –”  You felt like she had just kicked your legs out from under you.  “Who on god’s green earth could I  _ possibly  _ be in love with?”

Kazuko sighed again, heavier and overdramatic, and said with an incredible eye roll, “If you still haven’t realized the answer to that question after near-death in a blizzard, and yet  _ I  _ have managed to crack the code, then I really do have no hope for you.”

* * *

Out of all the people Gintoki expected to see at a maid café, Okita definitely wasn’t one of them.  He caught sight of Gintoki approximately halfway through his second parfait, at which point he was in no sort of mood to have a conversation with anyone on Earth, or anywhere else, for that matter.

“Oh. Boss,” Okita said, striding over with his hands in his pockets.

“Go away.  I don’t know you,” is what Gintoki would have said if his mouth wasn’t stuffed to the brim with cake and frosting.  All he ended up managing was an angry-sounding grunt as he nevertheless continued to shove another spoonful in his mouth.

Okita hummed, rocking on the balls of his feet and surveying the café disinterestedly.  “I was gonna say I’m surprised to see you here, but . . .” Okita turned back towards him, cocking his head.  Gintoki was probably imagining it, but he could swear there was a smirk on the child demon’s face.  “ . . . I’m really not.”

“Do you  _ want  _ something?” Gintoki snapped, scrubbing his mouth with the back of his hand and whipping his spoon into the empty parfait glass.  “I’m busy.”

“I see that,” Okita said with no small amount of doubt, watching the spoon spin to a stop.  “But I’m bored, so.”  He flung himself into the opposite seat, arm flung over the back.  “Here I am.”  His expression was utterly unreadable.

“Did I say you could sit here?  Get up.  Go home.  Read a book.  Never talk to me again.”

“Aw, Boss, you’re no fun,” Okita sighed, lolling his head back against the cracked pink plastic of the booth seat.  “I can’t go anywhere without getting a lecture from an annoying old man.”

“Oi, brat, just because you’re an officer of the law doesn’t mean I won’t beat the shit out of you.”

Okita didn’t even roll his eyes, just fixed Gintoki with an uncomfortably piercing stare.  “Where’s that woman you were hanging around with?  I forgot to ask her if she had actually entered the city legally or not.”

“None of your goddamn business where she is,” Gintoki snapped in response, waving at the waitress for another parfait that he could not afford.  “Not like she would let  _ you  _ of all people arrest her anyways.”

“You didn’t get her killed, did you?  The paperwork for manslaughter charges is a really big hassle, you know.”

Gintoki gave him a look so sharp Okita slid back a little in his seat, as if the strength of the glare had physically pushed him away.  “Are you gonna shut up and leave me alone or what?  I told you it’s none of your goddamn business.”  Okita’s eyebrows rose straight into his bangs, and the most awful, devilish smirk curled across his face.  “Stop that.  Why are you doing that.  I shouldn’t have to call an exorcism in the middle of a damn café –”

“No, no, Boss, it’s just that I never realized.  I see how it is now.”  

Gintoki resisted the urge to reach across the table and throttle the gangly bitch.  

“Don’t be coy with me you stupid capitalist pig, I’ll carve you up for dinner.”

“That woman,” Okita said, resting his chin in the palm of his hand.  “You’re in lo –”

Gintoki’s ensuing shriek was so piercing it may as well have shattered every single window in the café.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey everyone so uhhhhhhhhhhh being an adult? not about it. i gotta lotta responsibilites. a lot of class! three of the classes i have each week are five hours long and hoo buddy that amounts to a shit ton of homework. plus i'm sick! fun times. a dumb cold i caught from the person i'm dating because you know. that's how things are going for me. i'm determined to turn touya's life around very soon because fuck i need that kind of inspiration in my own daily existence.
> 
> i'm not gonna make any promises for when the next update will drop, i'm getting my wisdom teeth out over my spring break so if i get any writing done during that period it will most likely be incoherent. but thank you all.....so much.....for your sweet comments and for waiting for me for these hellish four months. it really keeps me going!!!!!


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